As a cultivator, and especially as a Fa-rectification period
Dafa disciple, you shoulder enormous responsibility, and you have a great
mission that history has bestowed upon you. But you have done great, and I, your
master, can say this in front of all the beings in the cosmos. Put another way,
you have won their admiration. Even though the things you do in this world look
a lot like the day-to-day things that ordinary people do, the fact is that the
Dafa disciples' basis and the purpose of what you do are completely different.
Because the human world is simply in delusion, being caught up in what is real
and tangible to them, it's hard for ordinary people to tell the real from the
fake. So whether ordinary people understand it or not, Dafa disciples are merely
making use of ordinary people's forms to save all beings. And for you
cultivators, precisely because of the delusion that is here in human society,
being in this environment allows you to cultivate, and those who succeed in
cultivation are outstanding.

Most students have done very well overall validating the Fa.
Of course, there are some who haven't, but they came here specifically to do bad
things; the old forces had it arranged from the outset that they would do those
things. So no matter how they act around Dafa disciples during normal times,
only at the critical times do you see their true side. No matter how well they
talk about things or how well they act in front of everyone, it's only at the
critical times that how they really are shows through.

You have come through difficult times that were full of
trials and hardships. Looking at the situation now, it's nothing like how it was
before. When it first started after July 20, 1999, the evil's fury was so
intense, and the way they lined up their evil forces it seemed as if they would
really put the Dafa disciples in grave danger. But now you have seen, haven't
you, that history was not created for those evil beings, but for forging Dafa
disciples and for saving sentient beings during the final time. (Applause)
Starting ages ago, mankind went through many, many civilizations in different
periods. Human beings have been infused with many, many things from all kinds of
historical cultures ranging from ancient times to today. As ordinary people see
it, everything that has happened with human beings' recent history and cultures,
and everything that happened ages ago with the lives on earth, makes up
mankind's history and the process of the proliferation of life. As scientists
see it, it is the process of life's evolution. Well the truth is, it's neither.
The entire Three Realms, including all beings in human society, were
constructed, formed, came about, were born, and were created so that sentient
beings could be rescued and saved amidst the Fa-rectification at the cosmos's
final time. In other words, the Three Realms were constructed for this purpose,
for the purpose of saving the beings in the cosmos.

During ages even longer ago, in this dimension where mankind
is, in this environment where mankind is, and in the material plane that is
composed of molecules, mankind simply did not exist. Through exploration modern
people have discovered that extraterrestrial life exists. Yes, in the past it
was such beings that were spread out over this plane composed of molecules, and
man didn't even exist. Why did gods create man later on? Because the cosmos was
to be reconstructed, sentient beings had to be rescued, and the Three Realms
needed an environment like this--one that would become the focal point of the
cosmos's reconstruction, and one where when the Great Law would be taught in
this special environment the beings in all realms could hear the Fa. It was for
the great purpose of saving all beings in the cosmos that the Three Realms, and
especially mankind in the Three Realms, were created. So everything that has
taken place in each of the periods in history, including recent human history,
has been for the purpose of creating a culture for man, for today's mankind, so
that it may understand the Fa. This was by no means intended for mankind just to
live, and even less was it for mankind to develop or to make some kind of good
life for itself in human society. Man may long for good things and may work
toward them, but the emergence of the Three Realms and mankind absolutely was
not meant for that.

That being the case, think about it: those things that
happened over the course of history, even the really major events, didn't they
have a reason behind them? Weren't they laying a certain foundation for today's
mankind? Suppose Shakyamuni, Jesus, Saint Mary, Laozi, etc. never existed, then
would people know what right faith is, what a God is, what a Buddha is, what a
Dao is, how to cultivate oneself, and what cultivation means? And what would
heavenly paradise mean to them? If people had no idea what those things were,
then it would be incredibly hard for me to teach the Great Law today. If I had
to explain those concepts to people from scratch, then it wouldn't be teaching a
Great Law. The different states beings of each different ethnic group have gone
through in each period in history, and their worldviews in terms of telling the
righteous from the wicked, right from wrong, and good from evil, all of these
things were purposefully created by gods for humans over the long, drawn out
years, thus enabling people to have a basic understanding of what is right and
wrong, good and evil. Then when Dafa would be spread and the salvation of
sentient beings would begin, people would understand all of these things and be
able to tell whether this Fa was good and whether it was upright.

Over the course of history people have come to know gods.
What's a "god"? Although it's only a very shallow sense, people do
know that gods are glorious and holy. And even though different lives know and
conceptualize "gods" differently, they all believe that gods are good
to people and can save them. All of the heroic figures who emerged in the
various dynasties and periods of Chinese history, all those outstanding cultural
figures that made history, they were all in fact establishing ways for mankind
to think, establishing the structure and ways of thinking that characterize
people today. It has been a magnificent undertaking in which the composition of
the human species's thought was created. It has taken place over ages and ages,
where the human race had to experience different things and cultures firsthand
before it could understand the meaning of them. So that's why when something
happens a person can know what it means, and through that event, he can know
what it represents on a deeper level. For example, what is "good,"
what does goodness entail, what are its connotations, and what is the scope of
the term? Or likewise, what is "evil" like, and what does it mean for
something to be "right" or "wrong"? Through their real-life
experiences, people came to understand all of these things, and they could truly
grasp what they mean. Only then could people have a deep understanding of all of
this. These aren't simple, basic things that you can have people understand
overnight.

When gods first created human beings, there was nothing in
people's minds, it was a complete blank, they couldn't distinguish between right
and wrong, and goodness and evil existed side by side. The extremes [in their
behavior] were huge: when they were happy, they were kind, and when they were
unhappy, they were vicious. But modern man is a different story. Why is it that
when today's people arrived at modern times they suddenly became so much wiser?
That had to do with another factor aside from the process of creating people
that I just talked about, and it is that high-level beings have incarnated as
human beings. As for the human race itself, its process over the course of
history was actually one of establishing human behavior and thought, or put
another way, it was one of creating the real people of today. So what was the
point of all these things? To make it possible for man to understand the Fa when
Dafa is spread widely today. What I'm saying is, this matter was planned ages
and ages ago; its establishment began that early.

And there's something I want to tell you about, which is, who
really does cultivation and who really has right faith. In the past, a lot of
people would talk about this or that way of cultivating, about such-and-such
practice, or about such-and-such faith. But I'm going to tell you that in
history, regardless of how many gods or how many enlightened beings came here,
their true mission was to establish the culture of cultivation and right faith
that Dafa needed to have established. (Applause) Nobody saved people, and
nobody has made it to a heavenly kingdom, the reason being, the cultivation
methods of old came about in order to lay a foundation for this Dafa that can
truly save people today. With the gods who came down in the past, there were
indeed some people who as a result of those gods' actions gained salvation. Yet
that wasn't the person's real self who was saved, but rather his assistant soul.
And even those gods who came down, the bodies that they inhabited in those
days... a human being, he's still part of the cycle of rebirth in the human
world, and even those who inhabited those bodies didn't get saved. So in other
words, in history many have proclaimed that they were "saving people,"
but nobody saved people. When Shakyamuni imparted his Fa ages ago, his disciples
asked him, "Master, is it possible for us to cultivate into a Tathagata
without breaking our ties to the secular world?" Or in other words, could
they cultivate into gods or Buddhas without leaving behind ordinary people's
surroundings and the social environment of this world? Shakyamuni thought about
it and said, "For that, you have to wait until the Holy King Who Turns the
Wheel descends to the world." (Applause) More than two-thousand
years have passed, and all the disciples of true religions have been waiting.
Waiting for what? For gods above to make a grand display? For gods to come here,
so that you don't need to cultivate or care about cultivating well, and it won't
matter if anyone is good or bad, and everybody will just go up to Heaven
together?

Of course, regardless of who I am, people know that I am
transmitting the Fa and saving people. But the Master who is with you here today
teaching the Fa has an ordinary person's physical body. As for how people think
of me, a lot of ordinary people have their opinions. That's fine--it doesn't
matter if they believe in me or not. I haven't said that I am a god or a Buddha.
Ordinary people can take me to be just an average, common man, that's fine. All
of what I do takes the form of human activity; I'm using the means of common,
plain human beings as I save Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples. No
high-level life will, when he saves people in this social environment, in this
kind of illusory dimension, use only grand, divine displays to miraculously save
people in the human world. (Applause) But it's different if what he does
is on a small scale, or only involves a few people, or if it was something done
in the past to create culture. That's how things are for mankind. Of course,
though, nothing is absolute. Maybe when the Fa rectifies the human world I will
use divine means, since at that time things might need to be done that way. But
if around the start of the Fa's rectification of the cosmos things here in
society were handled with divine means on a large scale, that would have led to
some attachments on the part of cultivators.

Some people are thinking, "Gods have a lot of abilities.
Why don't they save poor people and punish bad ones? Why don't they come and
perform miracles?" The formation of the Three Realms established human
society's way of existence and purpose. This is a society filled with delusion,
and it's meant to be a society where the sentient beings can't see all of the
truth. Whoever wants to cultivate here has to do so amidst delusion, and be a
good person, do good things using ordinary human means, and let go of
attachments. Only then can they escape from here, and only then can it be called
cultivation. If a person does something here using completely divine means, that
isn't cultivation. In history many cultivators of the Dao did carry out divine
acts in the human world, and that was creating historical culture. Why has that
become rare in recent times? It's because the closer it got to the time when
Dafa was to be spread, the less it was allowed for such things to occur. In
recent times, after Fa-rectification began and Fa-rectification period Dafa
disciples were about to start cultivating, the requirement grew higher. In
particular, when this special group of the cosmos's beings began to validate the
Fa and move towards Consummation, the environment here became even more
important, so the rule got even more strict and people are rarely allowed to see
the true situation. This batch of beings is to cultivate to high levels, so the
requirements for them are correspondingly high. This group of beings shoulders
great historic responsibilities and they have to come out of a very trying
environment. (Applause) So that is why Dafa disciples are remarkable.

In other words, the cultivation situation that today's Dafa
disciples are in is different from any cultivation method or situation in
history. I have always said that the old forces' participation is a form of
persecution and a form of interference. If what gods in the past saved were
people's assistant souls and not their actual main bodies, then think about it
everyone, would that method of saving people work for Dafa disciples'
cultivation today? The main bodies of Dafa disciples, as well as those of the
world's people, are at the surface. Then is what they did fitting? Would it
work? It wouldn't at all. So that's why I say that they are causing
interference. This method and form of cultivation that I've told everyone to
take today is to cultivate while conforming to ordinary human society and to
validate Dafa using ordinary human means to the greatest extent possible (applause),
and that's unprecedented. Those gods, they don't know anything about how to deal
with such a cultivation method, and what they've done is completely out of line,
so they are definitely a form of interference with Dafa disciples' cultivation.
This is not to say they lack abilities, it's just to say that this is how the
old cosmos created such beings, and that's the extent of the wisdom from the old
cosmos. During this Fa-rectification, the cosmos has perfected the past
imperfections and changed the things that the cosmos of the past failed to
change. Because of that, Dafa disciples can be saved and can reach Consummation
through cultivation. If the cultivation approach of the past were followed
today, not a single Dafa disciple could cultivate to Consummation.

Only when a person follows the method that Dafa uses today to
accomplish things, cultivate, and truly save people can he Consummate. (Applause)
And it's not just Consummation--the person is truly saved, the person's master
soul is saved. (Applause) As for those so-called gods who interfere with
Fa-rectification, they only know a part of it but not the whole, they only know
about the past but not today or the future, and only know the surface form but
not the inner content. When they try to do things they aren't capable of doing
them, and they have brought serious interference to Fa-rectification itself and
Dafa disciples' cultivation. That's why I say everything that I'm doing today is
completely different from what took place in history. Looking at the persecution
of Dafa disciples and that of Christians in history, on the surface both were
being persecuted. But for these cultivators, beings on their way to godhood,
what actually takes place is different. They strictly had to endure because in
the past the cosmos didn't have the ability to resolve those deeply rooted
historical issues, causing even high-level beings to persecute gods as well as
human beings who were on their way to godhood. All of that was shameful, both
for the history of the cosmos and on the part of the gods. Today what I'm doing
is not just different from the path that they took in the past; it is the
difference between the future and the past. This is the way that the cultivation
method Dafa has bestowed upon people is; Dafa disciples and I are laying a
foundation for the future. The cultivation methods of the future will be like
this forever! (Applause) Only this can be called truly saving
people, and only this can truly save people.

None of this could be changed at will. Everyone knows that
right now is the Fa-rectification period--the cosmos is being renewed, rebuilt,
and recreated. Only under this circumstance can the imperfections be mended, and
the only time that imperfections can be mended is when the colossal firmament is
being rebuilt. So this is an opportunity. No being is allowed to interfere with
or damage this opportunity. Whoever interferes is committing a sin, and whoever
interferes has to bear the responsibility.

What I said just now basically summarizes the difference
between the cultivation method of today's Dafa disciples and the cultivation of
people in the past. If a person wants to be saved, he must transcend the fact
that he is in and experiencing firsthand a tough environment where there is
adversity, self interest, emotions and desires. Everything will involve a
cultivator's self-interest, and anything can affect you as a person, your
thoughts and emotions, your xinxing,1 and the things that you
are attached to inside. If you manage to take a certain path and make certain
choices, then you are extraordinary. Otherwise, you are an ordinary person. If
you are able to step out of the reasoning and attachments of ordinary people,
then you are a god. (Applause) That's totally different from the
cultivation methods of the past.

People in the past went to temples and monasteries or into
the mountains to cultivate while avoiding the world's people. Those people
didn't physically endure too many xinxing tests or have their attachments
directly tugged upon, and didn't have the most direct test of material things.
So for the person's main body it is as if he didn't cultivate. Even though the
person gave up a normal life during his lifetime, for that person it was nothing
more than taking up a different lifestyle. If his assistant soul really
cultivated to success and an assistant soul that came out of his body became a
god, then it meant blessings for him. That person would receive blessings in his
next life. By "blessings," that meant he would have worldly blessings,
nothing more than that. Looking at it from the perspective of a being seeking
something through cultivation, who would cultivate to get those things? Speaking
on a fundamental level, nothing in the Three Realms was created for that, and no
sentient being came for that. Then in other words, the cultivation of today's
Dafa disciples is the most magnificent, and it is blazing a trail for the
future. That's why walking your path well is of utmost importance. (Applause)

I've said all along that Dafa disciples can't go to extremes.
You must walk your path well. If you let your imagination run wild, and you have
a crooked understanding about something today and have a sudden inspiration and
do something else tomorrow, or you keep doing stupid things while driven by your
attachment to showing off, all of those things are direct reflections of your
master soul and of you as a being. How could such a person Consummate? Your
actions are displays of your main body that is cultivating, and that is the same
main body that's to be saved. Could such a being be placed among the gods? No,
it couldn't. So you must do things well and cultivate rationally,
clear-headedly, and with righteous thoughts. And you are allowed to cultivate
while conforming to ordinary people's way of life to the greatest extent. As
long as Master says something is okay, you can just go ahead and follow ordinary
people's way of doing it, because you are meant to walk your path in that way,
and human beings are meant to be saved in that way. In the future, if a god
wants to come and save people, he too will have to do it that way. That's
because in the future cosmos, when it comes to saving people, the target will be
people's main bodies. So don't worry about how the cultivation methods of the
past and the types of faith then were, and don't worry about how influential
they were--you are the only ones who have truly cultivated. (Applause)
The cosmos is undergoing Fa-rectification, and the gods that they believe in are
repositioning themselves, so where would they go to get saved? How would they
get to a heavenly kingdom? The heavenly kingdoms are all being reconstructed.
Which heavenly kingdom would they go to? You are the most magnificent
beings and are moving toward heavenly kingdoms while truly saving sentient
beings in an upfront, open, and amazing way! (Applause)

What I said just now was meant for our Dafa disciples. Those
of you who aren't cultivators or who are new students might not quite understand
what I just said and find it hard to believe. Don't worry, I am not here to hurt
anyone, and there is nothing here that's bad for people. If you didn't
understand it, you can come to understand it gradually, and it's fine to come to
understand these cultivators incrementally.

There's one final thing I want to emphasize. A small number
of students aren't clearheaded and have very strong attachments! They can hear a
little bit and see a little bit, and they even feel that they have certain
abilities or think that they're some important figure. So they've begun to act
in an irrational and crazy-seeming way, and say things that make no sense. How
can you still cultivate? No matter who you are, if I can't save you today, you
will be a ghost in hell! Why are you being so irrational? Why do you spread
things among students that interfere with their cultivation and validating the
Fa? Is it simply an issue of you breeding demons in your own mind? You are
interfering with Dafa. Is that a small sin? If today I, Li Hongzhi, decide not
to recognize you as a Dafa disciple, not to recognize you as a student of mine,
do you think you could remain here? The Three Realms was created for this
purpose. Even though this firmament in the cosmos is immense, all beings are
focusing their attention here, and all beings here have to be recognized. So I
urge those students who are still being irrational: come to your senses and be
responsible to your own lives. Your own attachments have led wicked beings from
outside to command, interfere with, and control you, making you so irrational.

Master's words just now were fairly harsh. You might have
noticed that recently, sometimes my words to such students have been pretty
harsh. That's because I have seen the terrifying consequences that await them.
No matter how you take those words, no matter how the people who don't
understand me or Dafa disciples see things, I, Li Hongzhi, came for all beings.
I'm saving all beings, and I don't want to see a single being destroy himself,
because I came exactly for you! (Applause) I am worried, I am worried
about you. Time is becoming more and more pressing. You have seen that, and the
overall situation has changed a lot. If the persecution suddenly ends, then no
opportunity is left, and everything will have been decided.

It's been a long time since I attended one of your Fa
conferences, so I want to stay with you a little longer. (Enthusiastic
applause)

I've heard that some students came from Russia and there are
others that came from some other Eastern European countries. It was hard for
them to make it here, as they face a lot of challenges, both financial and
otherwise. There are also some new students who have never seen me in person and
have always wanted to see Master. And a lot of veteran students likewise haven't
seen Master for a long time. It seems that you all have a lot of things to say,
and you would be disappointed if I left now. (Master laughs) (Applause)
In that case, let's still use our old method--if you have something to say,
write it down on a piece of paper and pass it up, and I'll answer questions for
all of you. (Applause)

You all really have worked hard. The weather is getting
colder. During the summer when you clarified the truth and validated Dafa in
front of the consulates, on the streets, or in other settings, even though it
was hot, it was still bearable. When the weather gets cold, the climate poses a
certain degree of challenge for you. Even so, you haven't let the harsh
conditions stop you. Quite the opposite, you are still working hard and haven't
let up. That's truly amazing, and the beings of the future and the world's
people in the future will thank you, because the people that will remain here in
the future will owe that fact to you. (Applause) The world's people are
in delusion. Dafa disciples are the ones going through so-called tests, while
all sentient beings are lost in a state of delusion. But in the future, everyone
will know who the Dafa disciples were. They will all know the greatness of Dafa
disciples, and those who remain will feel gratitude toward Dafa disciples.

Disciple asks: If circumstances allow, can I go back to
Mainland China to work?

Teacher: If the persecution ends and the Fa's
rectification of the human world hasn't arrived yet, then if you want to go back
to Mainland China to work, you can go ahead. Are you asking if you can go back
now? Right now it's best not to go back because the persecution is still going
on. I know that a few individual students might have received phone calls or
messages from certain officials in Mainland China or people with certain
positions. They told you to go back and guaranteed certain things, promising
that you wouldn't be persecuted and some other things. Think about it everyone,
were those officials the ones that set the policy of persecution? Then isn't the
simple fact that they can guarantee something suspicious? So who is directing
them behind the scenes? (Applause) How is it that they can make a
guarantee? Who is giving them that guarantee? Isn't that suspicious? What is
meant by "forming a unified front for battle," anyway? When their low
tactics no longer work, they start "forming a unified front for
battle." They're up to their old tricks again, and you need to be on guard.
We don't pose a risk to any political power. We simply want them to stop the
persecution. (Applause) They persecute people and at the same time try to
bring those people over to their side. They have used all the dirty tricks in
the book. (Audience laughs)

Disciple: Dafa disciples in the city of Chongqing send
greetings to Master. (Teacher: Thank you!) (Applause) Master, we
promise we will do well at every moment the things that we should do.

Disciple: Dafa disciples who are illegally detained at a
women's labor camp(s) in Beijing send greetings to Master.

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause)

Disciple: Dafa disciples who are being illegally detained in
a prison(s) in Beijing send greetings to Master.

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause) No matter what kind
of environment you are in, you must keep your righteous thoughts firm, because
you are Dafa disciples and you are special beings.

Disciple: The European Fa conference will be held in London
next year, and we eagerly hope that Master will grace us with his presence.
(Audience smiles and applauds) Master, please tell us why "seven Buddhas"
has been changed to "six Buddhas."

Teacher: I'll talk about it from a couple of angles. One
is that no small number of Buddhas have come down to the human world over the
course of history. It's more than six, and in fact more than seven. Of course,
there have been other gods as well. Just talking about Buddhas, quite a few have
come down to save people, yet when it comes to the Buddhas like Shakyamuni who
had special missions, there were six of them before Shakyamuni. When I've talked
about them, I have counted Buddha Shakyamuni as one of them, so there were
seven. But Buddhism has always talked about six, because Shakyamuni's disciples
thought of those Buddhas as his disciples, so they haven't counted Buddha
Shakyamuni and ended up with six. When I have talked about them I have counted
Buddha Shakyamuni in, so that made seven. But that said, when imparting the Fa
you of course need to do it according to people's ability to accept things. So,
to do our best to save the followers of Buddhism, we went with what they say and
changed the number to six. (Applause)

Disciple: Greetings to esteemed Master! I'd like to send
greetings to Master on behalf of students in Romania.

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause)

Disciple: Most of the students in Romania are new. They have
dealt with all kinds of challenges, but they are all very diligent. I
respectfully ask Master to talk about how students in Romania can do a better
job of participating in validating the Fa, as well as how Romania can play a
better role in validating the Fa.

Teacher: I said earlier that relative to the number of
people in the world, the number of Dafa disciples right now is very small, but
you have a great mission that history has bestowed upon you. So as for the Dafa
disciples in any region, you are basically the hope for the beings in that
region to be saved--their only hope, in fact. The beings there need to hear the
Good News, and they need to hear you clarify the facts to them so that they can
understand what Dafa is. That is why Dafa disciples' responsibilities are
weighty. Then you might ask, how can you do better? I think that for you, Dafa
disciples, if each of you uses simply your mouth to tell the people in each
region the facts, then we won't get to all of them. The energy Dafa disciples
carry as they cultivate and stick to righteous thoughts and actions, as well as
the mighty virtue from their cultivation, have an additional effect.

On the other hand, everything that Dafa disciples have done
and everything that Dafa disciples have said when clarifying the facts causes
the facts to circulate in ordinary human society and creates an environment that
fosters communication among the people. Then with that environment, the
discussions people have are another way for those beings to get saved, an
indirect way. Another thing is that many beings have been poisoned by the evil
beings, and in their minds there is a lot of propaganda from the CCP's slanderous media. In that case, it's better if you can clear
it away through clarifying the facts, because the negative thoughts that human
beings have about Dafa can be taken advantage of and used by those evil beings
that persecute Dafa disciples. So Dafa disciples can remove them while sending
forth righteous thoughts and through their righteous thoughts and righteous
actions. As a matter of fact, if your thoughts are very righteous, when you walk
down the street and go about your life in the city where you live, all of your
surroundings will be cleansed. Your mere existence has the effect of saving
sentient beings. But, despite your great abilities, you will still face
adversity for the benefit of your personal cultivation, since everyone has a
journey that he must make in cultivation. At the same time, the old forces have
created many forms of interference to your validating the Fa. Under normal
circumstances it is very hard to clear away that interference if the righteous
thoughts aren't strong enough.

As for how to do things well, that means doing well in the
three things that Dafa disciples should do--that is doing things best. (Applause)
But the amounts of effort being put forth are different. Some people don't put
forth too much effort while other students are more diligent and put forth more.
Of course, Master sees that in society each individual has a family and a job,
not to mention different social obligations due to your ties to society, so you
have very little time left over. Master knows about all of this and is
understanding. As a matter of fact, Dafa's method of cultivation takes that
issue into consideration and won't disrupt things in that area.

Disciple: Disciples in Taiwan send greetings to Master.
(Applause) Master, please tell us the current direction for the Asia-Pacific
Pure Awakening website.

Teacher: Dafa disciples' websites should be run well,
because they are a vehicle for clarifying the truth and are playing a role in
saving sentient beings. So they should be run well. As for what to do
specifically, that's up to you. (Teacher smiles) Why is it that Master
doesn't talk about things too specifically? Master only makes sure that no
problems develop in the overall scheme of things. But as for the problems,
arguments, and differences in understanding among students, those are things
that reflect the state of your cultivation. So when it comes to how to walk your
path and how to handle each thing, those are things that you yourselves must
address as a part of establishing your own mighty virtue. If I tell you how to
handle each thing, then it becomes something I did, and no god will acknowledge
that you did it. (Teacher smiles) (Applause) So I have to leave
those things to you. I can't deprive you of your opportunity to cultivate.

Disciple: Dafa disciples in the city of Guangzhou send
greetings to esteemed Teacher.

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause)

Disciple: Esteemed Teacher, could you please tell us if it's
okay for Dafa disciples in Mainland China to send [overseas] money that they
have saved through living frugally, to be used for truth-clarification projects
in New York City?

Teacher: It is okay in principle--if you are very well
off financially, then it's not a problem. But here we're talking about money
saved through living frugally, so it means the person isn't that well off. In
that case, it's best to keep the money for clarifying the truth in Mainland
China, because the environment outside of the Mainland is still much better than
inside. (Applause)

Disciple: Master, please tell us if the truth-clarification
activities in Manhattan will continue until the Fa-rectification ends. (Audience
laughs)

Teacher: No, they won't. I talked about this before when
students who are clarifying the truth in Manhattan held a meeting. You will do
this for only a period of time. Manhattan is pretty unique: it's practically the
financial center of the world, and a lot of major corporations all over the
world have offices or branches here. In other words, it is a point of
convergence for the financial world and is closely connected to the whole world.
And the people who gather in Manhattan are, owing to its uniqueness, themselves
unique. Many well-educated people are concentrated here, as well as people with
a certain amount of power and financial means in society. In other words, the
roles that they play in society are no ordinary thing.

Even though relatively speaking there are a lot of students
in the New York region, including the area around New Jersey, after what has
taken place over the last few years it still looks like a great many people in
Manhattan are indifferent. After such a long period of doing things to clarify
the truth, a lot of people still haven't come into contact with Dafa disciples.
The CCP has put a lot of evil here to persecute Falun Gong,
and that has resulted in some people here in this environment always having
impediments to understanding Dafa.

And in addition, there is another problem I've discovered.
There are Chinese employees in Manhattan's many big corporations, and even in
some of the small corporations and establishments, and the majority of those
Chinese people have been deceived by the falsehoods spread by the CCP's slanderous propaganda machine, and those things in their heads
have not been cleared away all this time. So they have become people who spread
venom in American society. It's not that those people are evil by nature. But
indeed, while Dafa disciples are clarifying the truth in one place they are over
there spreading the slanderous things from the CCP in some
other place. It wouldn't hurt for you to write the following on flyers, display
boards, or have the media report it: "The Chinese people in your company
have been misled and they are helping the CCP spread its
venom (applause), so you should examine the facts for yourselves." (Applause)

Disciple: How can I do a better job of validating the Fa if I
don't have any of the skills ordinary people do?

Teacher: It's fine not to have ordinary skills. Many
students pass out flyers and newspapers on the street and clarify the truth to
ordinary people face to face. Those are all things that you can do. Many
students gather in front of the consulates and embassies year-round, and that
too is really admirable. There are a lot of things that you can do.

Disciple: Hello, esteemed Teacher. Many characters in Zhuan
Falun and other Dafa books have been changed recently. What is the deeper
meaning behind that?

Teacher: I'm not going to talk about the meaning behind
it. I'll just talk about it at the surface. Let's take the [Chinese] character
"practice" from the [two-character term] "cultivation
practice" as an example. If the persecution of Dafa disciples had not
happened, I would have given you the path that you should have taken. But after
the persecution started, those sham qigong practices and all kinds of
messed up things started participating in the persecution, and even went on TV
to attack Dafa. Of course, the reason they did those things was that so many
people were learning Dafa--their own people included--that they couldn't make
money anymore. So they became jealous and hateful. That's why some students
raised the question, "Master, in the character 'practice,' when we use it
to describe other qigong practices, could we change that one part of the
character from the one meaning 'fire' to the one meaning 'silk'? They don't
practice true cultivation in the first place."

That's just an example. In all kinds of other places there were many factors caused by deviations arising from the deviant culture. Chinese is a special written language, and it is similar to the written language in the heavens. And oral Chinese is similar to the language spoken in the heavens, because it is a form of culture that gods directly created for mankind. Also, since what was established in China was a semi-divine culture, the form and sound of Chinese characters are interconnected with the cosmos. It's different from the written languages in the West and the written languages of other ethnicities. That's because from a certain perspective, the written languages of other cultures are actually sets of symbols that gods created for human beings so that they could await the Fa in those regions after forming predestined connections. That way the people awaiting the Fa in those places could lead normal lives and temporarily have a set of symbols to communicate with each other. But if the sound and form of Chinese characters are interconnected with the cosmos, then think about it, what kind of interference could they have on mankind, on Fa-validation by Dafa disciples who have obtained the Fa and cultivated on this plane, and even on Fa-rectification? Put another way, the old forces used those factors to exploit things in Fa-rectification. Let's take the word "目的" (mu di or "destination") as an example. In ancient times when the word "destination" or other words used to describe reaching a certain place were written, the character "di" was always the same "di" as in the Chinese character "土地" (tu di or "earth"). In modern times, with the apparent rationale of standardizing grammar and making it easier for people to master grammar, that "地" (di, as in "earth") has been written as "的" (di, a grammatical article). So even after you have supposedly reached the "destination," you still haven't gotten to the "place." (Audience laughs, applauds)

There are problems with many factors. In modern times the old
forces have damaged Chinese culture and left a big mess for me to deal with as I
impart the Fa. There are just so many damaging factors in a myriad of areas, so
a lot of things needed to be put right. But there was no time to do that, so the
corrections simply addressed a few things. The good thing is, the Fa's inner
meanings aren't affected. The book Zhuan Falun manifests differently in
each dimension, and the Zhuan Falun in the heavens looks completely
different from the one on earth, so it hasn't been affected.

Disciple: I haven't been able to cultivate while conforming
to ordinary people to the greatest extent possible. Will that leave me with a
lot of regrets in the future?

Teacher: So you haven't managed to cultivate while
conforming to ordinary people to the greatest extent possible, well, "to
the greatest extent possible" means meeting the requirements completely. So
if it ended today, whichever level you belonged to would be fixed. It hasn't
ended today so, since it hasn't ended, when it comes to the standards that you
have or haven't met, and the things that you have or haven't cultivated well in,
those are still just parts of the ongoing process, so no one can conclude that
this is just what you are. If you have come to recognize your shortcoming, and I
believe that you must have since you submitted the question slip, then correct
it and do better. (Applause)

Disciple: Esteemed Teacher, the word "?̶ȼ"
(cheng du or "degree") from previous editions of Zhuan Falun has
been changed to "?ɶȼ" (cheng
du or "degree of accomplishment"). But one of my fellow practitioners
said that the Minghui website hasn't published that change, so, should it be
changed back to the original?

Teacher: There have been several rounds of character
changes; there were just so many things to change. Once one matter is dealt
with, a lot of things happen, so as of now the changing of characters ends and
no additional changes will be made. To find out about the changes that have been
made, you can refer to the edition of Zhuan Falun that will soon be
published and then make your changes based on that edition. This happened
because Minghui was only sometimes notified of the character changes, so that's
the situation.

Disciple: Is the structure of the cosmos that you have talked
about referring to the new cosmos's structure?

Teacher: The structure that I talked to you about before
was all about the old cosmos's structure. The state that is evident during the
Fa-rectification is also the state displayed by beings of the old cosmos. The
new cosmos can't be talked about. Not only can't it be talked about, but the
secrets of heaven cannot be revealed. (Teacher smiles) (Audience
laughs, applauds) Many of the secrets of heaven in the old cosmos can no
longer be called secrets of heaven, because those things will be altered, they
will undergo changes. But the old cosmos does have many many good beings and
factors, including structures that are good, so those will be kept. So, a great
many beings and the vast majority of the structure of the old cosmos have been
kept.

Disciple: With the time for saving sentient beings being so
pressing, why do my selfish thoughts persist as they do? I am worried about
myself.

Teacher: I think that being able to see your own
shortcomings is cultivation. That's actually very normal. When you can
recognize it, that's the first step to improving. If you can manage to pay
attention to those things on a day-to-day basis and do them well little by
little, then you are improving. Don't get anxious, as doing so will lead to
attachments. When you see problems, make changes, and when you see shortcomings,
overcome them. There are a lot of things that you might not be able to do, and
I've taken that into consideration in every respect, and I foresaw it when I
disseminated the Fa. In other words, what I want to save is mainly the master
soul, the person himself. How much ability does a person have? If a person can
recognize his own mistakes and overcome them, then he is cultivating, but what
happens if the elements that make up a person's being become deviant? Or, more
specifically, what happens when a person's way of thinking is deviant? Case in
point: for so many years the CCP has intentionally educated
people in a way that reinforces its own things. Many people have seen that the
Party is not good, but they're only able to say that the Party isn't good from
within the culture fostered by the Party's education. They haven't truly
recognized it and can't see it for what it is outside of the culture of the
Party that has been instilled in them. That's a deviant way of thinking. What
can be done in that case? That's why I say that there are certain things that
you can do, and you're not a cultivator if you don't do the things within your
power. But whatever you can't do, Dafa will certainly do those things for you,
and Master definitely has ways to do them. (Applause)

In other words, you must cultivate the part that you are
supposed to cultivate. As for the things that you can't cultivate, and can't
detect or recognize--or take care of even if you could recognize them--Master
will take care of them. Of course, it doesn't mean that when you see attachments
that you can't get rid of you can use the excuse of "I can't do anything
about that" and thereby shrug off your responsibility. (Audience laughs)
That won't do. What I'm talking about is, when it comes to the structures of
your being and your way of thinking--things that you can't detect at all and
can't take care of--Master will definitely take care of those things.

Disciple: Master, is the time when the persecution ends the
time that the Fa will rectify the human world?

Teacher: That is quite possible. (Applause) It's
better if I don't talk about those things, though. As soon as I talk about that,
everyone's mind will become unsettled. I'll leave the wonder and magnificence of
that for you to see for yourselves.

Disciple: Master, could you talk about the origins of the
evil political party that persecutes Dafa disciples? (Audience laughs)

Teacher: As far as how that thing came into existence on
a fundamental level, I think it's better that I don't talk about it at a Fa
conference. As far as how it came into existence in the human world, that is
something that everyone already knows without my saying anything. Actually,
whether you want to talk about a crooked political party or an evil political
party or any other kind of political party, as cultivators we have absolutely
nothing to do with that. No matter how evil a party might be, it's something of
the human world, and no matter how good it might be, it is still something of
the human world. Being a cultivator means stepping out of the human world, and
when it comes to cultivating in the human world, cultivators don't get involved
with all those worldly conflicts and issues. Things that are evil, well, there
are reasons for their existence, and with things that are good there are reasons
for their existence too. It is determined by the state of human society, and
Dafa disciples don't concern themselves with those things at all. But everyone
saw clearly that back when that arch devil started persecuting us, it was
yelling that its political party "must defeat Falun Gong" and "I
refuse to believe the *** Party can't defeat Falun Gong." I know that it
did those things out of jealousy and resentment, but I also know that there were
elements of its political party behind its words. Put another way, we exposed
them only after they persecuted us. We don't recognize this persecution. In the
process of clarifying the truth, we will tell the world's people why Falun Gong
is being persecuted, what Falun Gong is, and what that political party is.
Whoever it is that has persecuted Dafa disciples should be exposed and the
malignant influence that has spread among the minds of the world's people should
be cleared away.

After listening to students clarify the truth, some people
still say, "Falun Gong is pretty good, but I think the *** Party has its
reasons." And there are a lot of people who think that what the CCP says can't be wrong, and so they refuse to listen to the truth.
Those people haven't seen that it is evil to the core. Some people say, "Falun
Gong is pretty good, but the Party hasn't done anything wrong. It's that arch
devil's fault." In that case, we should tell the world's people why it
persecutes Falun Gong and what kind of motive it had when it began persecuting
Falun Gong; we should help people see who the evil cult really is and what the
Party is all about. The Dafa disciples that are being persecuted should expose
its disreputable past.

Worldly affairs are not the concern of Dafa disciples, who
are cultivators, but I, Li Hongzhi, know about all such affairs. (Applause)
I've been explaining these things all along over the last several years of
persecution, and yet the persecution continues. The new leadership of the CCP has been in power for two years so far, and the
persecution continues. Is it just a matter of isolated individuals committing
evil acts? Then why shouldn't we tell the world about the fundamental evilness
of that political party? If you didn't persecute us, we wouldn't want to have
anything to do with you, and we wouldn't want to say anything about you. The
lives of so many Dafa disciples have been taken, and the persecution continues.
How evil! Also, the Party has used the one-sided media to broadcast slanderous
propaganda to every corner of the earth, and it's even worse than that of the
Cultural Revolution. It is targeting a group of such good and kind people. Even
if I forbear it and tolerate it, none of the gods will stand for it! (Applause)

Disciple: Because of my attachment of emotion, I have made
mistakes. I feel remorse over the path I have taken. How should I make up for
it?

Teacher: (Teacher sighs) These are in fact the
things that pain Master the most. For a cultivator, it's just so shameful. It's
shameful even for an ordinary person, but you are a cultivator, so how could you
even raise this for open discussion? It is just so shameful. Did you know that
in old-time cultivation, as soon as a cultivator broke the rule pertaining to
this, he wouldn't be able to cultivate again for the rest of his life. That's
how serious it is.

So, what can be done? Dafa is merciful, and Master looks at
your being in its entirety, and you will still have chances before the Fa's
rectification of the human world arrives. But you can't make those mistakes
again. You just can't. And during this period of time especially, the evil will
capitalize on your emotion to aggravate its persecution of you and will cause
your desires and attachments to be particularly strong, to the point where you
can't handle yourselves well and will take an evil path. Master has seen that.
If you can walk your path well and cultivate well, that sin will belong to the
evil. But if you still don't walk your path well, that sin will be your own. Of
course, the evil that is interfering with you will be eliminated, and after that
anything you do will be yours.

During the Fa-rectification period, when the Fa is rectifying
the entire cosmos, do you know how Master is doing it? As for all the beings in
the entire cosmos, including the world's people, and beings that are lower than
this world--even ones that are down very very low, including beings in the
underworld and hell--I have been doing things according to one principle: no
matter what sins or mistakes a being committed in its past, I disregard all of
that; I can get rid of all those things for you and make everything good. Nobody
has ever treated sentient beings like this before. If a certain place in the
cosmos was no longer up to par, it was destroyed through explosion and then
recreated. If a certain place was no longer up to par, it was just like the
metabolism of the human body, where if a cell is no longer up to par it dies off
and a new one is created. Treating all beings with such mercy is something that
has never ever happened for as long as the cosmos has existed. (Applause)
I've been doing this all along, and I have achieved this. But there is one
thing. If a sin was committed against Dafa during the Fa-rectification period,
interfering with the Fa-rectification, then that sin cannot be forgiven. There
is just this one stipulation. If even this stipulation weren't there, the Fa of
the cosmos would no longer exist. Beings of the future wouldn't have the Fa to
follow and abide by, and it would be the same thing as the cosmos not having a
Fa, making it a messed up, chaotic world. That cannot happen! That would be the
same as harming the cosmos, so having a negative effect in Fa-rectification
means having committed such a sin. For a being, it could be caused by just one
misplaced thought, but the consequences are devastating.

Disciple: Greetings to esteemed Master. I'm a Korean disciple
from Heilongjiang province. Please allow me to greet Master on behalf of all
Dafa disciples from Heilongjiang and the different truth-clarifying teams in
Korea.

Teacher: Thank you. (Applause) The Dafa disciples
in Korea have done quite well. There are also many Dafa disciples of Korean
ethnicity in Mainland China and they have been persecuted very severely. I know
about all of this.

Disciple: Our truth-clarifying team focuses on clarifying the
truth to the Beijing area, putting 80% of our effort there, and using the other
20% on other things, including efforts to rescue students. When we strengthen
efforts to clarify the truth to the Beijing area, will the evil that's
concentrated in Manhattan be reduced?

Teacher: The right way to put it is this: when Dafa
disciples from different places are all doing very well, the evil can't deal
with them all and it is cleared away in all places. The evil that came to
Manhattan is in the process of being completely eliminated. Right now, the evil
in the Three Realms has been eliminated in large quantities. You can see that
the current situation is changing, and even the weather is changing. The Dafa
disciples that have sat in front of the New York Consulate know that it was the
coldest place, and our Dafa disciples have really endured a lot over these
years. Looking at the current situation, the Dafa disciples from different
places are fully utilizing their skills and talents to do things to validate
Dafa, so it is causing this evil to become less and less. It's really difficult
for it to concentrate itself and do anything.

Disciple: How can I and everyone else work together so that
we can look at matters broadly and put Dafa first?

Teacher: This is a question that all Dafa disciples
should think about. As far as what to do, only by studying the Fa well and
acting according to what Master tells you can you walk this path righteously.

Disciple: It isn't easy for us disciples from Mainland China
to get to the U.S. to attend Fa conferences, and it is rare for us to see Master
in person. We would like to sincerely ask Master to address the disciples from
Mainland China who went to Korea to help Master in Fa-rectification. Please tell
us how we can do well what we should do and fulfill the vows we made before
history.

Teacher: Dafa disciples are all the same, and you should
do well no matter where you are. Whether you are abroad or are in an environment
where you are directly persecuted by the evil, you should display Dafa
disciples' righteous thoughts and righteous actions, as that strikes fear into
the evil. The evil is raucous on the surface, but inside it is afraid. You are
Dafa disciples, and you can't have fear inside. If a cultivator can truly let go
of [the fear of] death, then that death will forever be far removed from you.
But this isn't something you can will to happen--it's a point that you cultivate
to in the Fa, one at which you become that kind of being. When the persecution
in Mainland China started, if all of the Dafa disciples had managed to act
fairly righteously like now, the persecution would have never gotten off the
ground, and those evil things would have been destroyed instantly. The human
world is no place for them to make a display of evilness.

Now you folks have gradually become more clearheaded, calmer,
and more rational, and you know what to do, and one might say that a lot of your
human attachments have been cultivated away. Well, actually, with some students
it's not that their human attachments have been cultivated away but that the
students have been too scared to do anything out of line, and if the environment
eases up a little bit they will dare to do those things again. That's no good.
If a person can't cultivate in the Fa, then he isn't able to truly understand
the Fa. Only when a person has truly grasped the Fa can he walk the path
righteously and can his being be assured a good outcome. Otherwise that kind of
being remains in the most perilous situation, because the evil can take
advantage of his gaps at any time. If he were an ordinary person, no matter how
bad he was, the evil wouldn't pay any attention to him. Because he wants to
cultivate, though, the evil will try to stop him from cultivating. And when you
don't cultivate solidly you become a target for the evil's persecution.

Disciple: A few students are very enthusiastic about
clarifying the truth, but they have never been able to go beyond the petty
confines of attachment to self. They haven't done well in overall cooperation
and coordination, and more seriously, they have affected some other students. If
they still can't do well with fellow practitioners' help, I'd like to ask
Master, what kind of consequences will those students face in the future?

Teacher: In my opinion, right now you can't say how
students are or draw conclusions about them, because there are all kinds of
different manifestations in the process of cultivation, and all ordinary
people's attachments will show. As long as a practitioner doesn't remove them
they will definitely show. As for the part that has cultivated well, it is
nowhere to be seen, because the part of him that has cultivated well can't be
shown. And the part that hasn't been cultivated well will be seen by others
whenever it surfaces. What's key is how he deals with it and whether he can
recognize his shortcomings when others point that part out or when his
attachments come out in conflicts--that's what is critical. Once you recognize
something you need to overcome it, and only that is cultivation. When all is
said and done, I'd say that it's a question of diligence.

If a person doesn't cultivate well and affects another Dafa
disciple or a lot of other Dafa disciples, and causes their cultivation to fail,
that is the severe sin of interfering with Dafa disciples' cultivation, one that
cannot be absolved even after a being descends down to the eighteenth level of
hell. Some students aren't able to remove their longstanding attachments,
leading to their being interfered with by the evil. All of you are thinking that
these people are done for and can't make it. Right now you can't look at it like
that. Some students have in fact gotten rid of many other attachments, and a lot
of attachments are gone and won't show themselves, but those attachments that
they haven't cultivated away still show up. Master will definitely have those
come out and be affected in conflicts, and will for sure have everyone see that,
and the goal will be to have them get rid of those. When you see one, you need
to point it out to them. If you don't point it out that is because you have an
attachment of fearing to offend others. In that case, they will be made to have
clashes and conflicts with you so that both you and him will recognize those
attachments. And the goal is to cultivate away those human attachments. But when
you look at the students who have attachments that show, you can't think that
they're no good. So misunderstandings and mistakes among Dafa disciples are
unavoidable. The key is that you can't have real conflicts and clashes among
yourselves or start to mistrust one another.

Recently, I have often stressed the issue of cooperating and
coordinating well with each other. Whether or not those bad attachments of yours
have been removed, you have to cooperate well with each other just the same. Why
is it that at times you see arguments coming up a lot, and sometimes the
arguments go on and on? Why is it that in validating the Fa, disciples' opinions
are time and again not unified? This is something that's been quite prominent
recently in Mainland China. What's the real problem? It's very simple--it is a
question of whether you are validating the Fa or validating yourself. If you are
validating the Fa, no matter what another person says about you, you won't be
affected inside. If someone counters your opinion and you get riled up and don't
like it, if when other people raise an opinion opposite yours based on some
problem you have or disagree with your opinion and you don't like it, and you
stand up to oppose it and argue on your own behalf, and when this leads to your
going off topic and not listening to others, [in all such cases] you are--even
if you are defending and explaining yourself with the best of intentions--still
just validating yourself. (Applause) That is because you didn't put Dafa
first, and at that time the thing that you couldn't let go of most was self.

But people's thoughts are complex, and sometimes it's hard to
tell. Some people truly are thinking of the Fa, really do feel that
such-and-such way is right, and are not attached to themselves. They're just
holding their ground like that. Some may say, "You're so insistent, aren't
you validating yourself?" So at those times you have to be calm and
collected. In fact, when everyone is thinking of the Fa the problem of not
cooperating is non-existent. We should be good people wherever we are--aren't we
supposed to think of others first when we do things? Why is it that Dafa
disciples don't think of others first when dealing with each other? You're
thinking, "We're all cultivators and everyone is cultivating, so when we're
with other disciples there is no need to think about how we talk to each
other." Isn't that what you're thinking? Well, that's not right. Do not
forget this point: you are human beings that are in the process of cultivating,
you are not gods cultivating, so you must be considerate of others.

Disciple: Students in Korea are using all sorts of ways to
step up the effort to clarify the truth to different kinds of people, and they
are gradually getting people's attention and support. The truth-clarification
has yielded better and better results, and at the same time, all over the
country great numbers of new students are pouring in. But recently, one after
another, a few students have had accidents and died tragically. One died when
the bus he was riding in flipped over, one drowned, and another died in an
accident at work. One of those students was very active in clarifying the truth.
The occurrence of several such incidents caused some of the newer students to
waver.

Teacher: I just talked about the old forces' interference
to Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples. So why do the old forces do things like
that, then? What is their goal? They think, "All of you have come here to
cultivate and you think that Dafa is good. Is your understanding of Dafa's
goodness truly based on the Fa truths? Or rather, do you just go along when
other people say it's good? Or is it that you say the Fa is good when you feel
like you've benefited from it?" Cultivation and Dafa are solemn, and they
can turn human beings into gods. The old forces can't stand that, so they want
to test you. They want to see if you will still say Dafa is good and stay and
cultivate when they have people pass away who have reached the end of their life
spans. The old forces have done that, so when a student faces life-threatening
danger, you can't say that he is not good or that he has some serious problems.
That is actually the old forces creating a disturbance by taking advantage of
human attachments. One thing is that it's easy for some students to waver, and
if those kinds of students had all cultivated very well and solidly, those
problems wouldn't have taken place. If certain students can't manage to get rid
of long-standing attachments inside themselves, they can be persecuted and
interfered with. [They might think,] "I've been doing the exercises, and my
illnesses have been cured. I feel so good. My life has become easier."
Their understanding always remains at that level and they can't understand the
Fa on the basis of the Fa, and that makes it easy for problems to come up. Of
course, these things don't always stem from that type of problem. The old forces
have been doing this for a long time, and these kinds of things also happened
before in the cultivation of students in Mainland China. So that's why in
cultivation it is imperative to look at things with righteous thoughts and
clearly recognize that cultivation is the most serious of matters.

Of course, certain things have happened. Students in
different regions have pretty much become clearheaded, they are able to
understand things on the basis of the Fa, and they can thus handle those things
correctly. There used to be some students who would often say, "So-and-so
at our practice site has done so well! We'll do whatever he does." Let me
tell all of you that you absolutely must not do that and absolutely must not
think that way. Cultivators can't take other human beings as their role models.
They must take the Fa as the teacher! (Applause) As soon as you start
doing things [like I described] and thinking in that way, two problems will
surface. One is that you will likely push that student to a place where there is
no way out for him. And it's likely the old forces will lead him to have
problems and even make him leave us early in order to test other students.
[They'll think,] "You're all looking to him. With things like this, are you
still going to study, and are you still going to cultivate?" Under
circumstances like this, there are really some students who think, "If even
he couldn't make it, will I be able to?" They waver. Isn't that the old
forces taking advantage of gaps? [In that situation] even I, your master, can't
say anything! The old forces say, "Take a look. See how that test ended up?
What we did was right, wasn't it?" So when the righteous thoughts are not
strong, people's minds waver. You absolutely must be on guard against that! You
should take the Fa as the teacher. You can't look at how well a certain
individual has cultivated and as a result learn from that person instead of the
Fa.

Weren't there students like that when the persecution in
Mainland China first began? Many students were looking to the assistants and
doing whatever the assistants did. When the assistants gave in, they followed
suit and gave in too. Of course, students are students of Dafa after all, so
when they calmed down later on, they realized that they had been wrong. They
started to study the Fa anew, and realized that that understanding of theirs had
been wrong and that what they did was wrong. But, looking at that one part of
it, didn't it bring shame to them? They did do that thing at one point, so for a
cultivator, isn't that a black mark? So, causing people's minds to waver will
bring trouble to the cultivation environment. You absolutely must be attentive
to that.

All kinds of things might happen during cultivation. Some
people saw that such-and-such people had their illnesses cured after they
started practicing. They thought, "Wow, even such serious illnesses have
been cured." Or, "Wow, that person's cancer was cured after he started
practicing." "I'll practice too." But why did that person end up
coming? He came because of the cancer and for the purpose of getting healthy. He
didn't come here to truly cultivate. But I realize that everyone has to start
somewhere in understanding the Fa. One person might start to understand the Fa
at one point and another at a different point. But once someone enters the
practice he must take studying the Fa as first and foremost--only then is it
cultivation. In that case, when you can truly understand the Fa during
cultivation, you will be able to get rid of any attachment. You will think,
"I've obtained the Fa, and I am not afraid of anything. If I die, so be it.
Even if I die, I have obtained the Fa. What's going to happen to me after I die?
I won't end up in hell. I've obtained the Fa, after all." A person like
that will not encounter anything that endangers his life and he won't have any
health problems (Applause). That is because the state of mind he
demonstrates is that of a true cultivator. He has truly understood [what
cultivation is] and has truly elevated himself, and he has let go of all
attachments. At least in this one regard he has transcended humanness, he has
gone beyond the realm of humanness. Only ordinary human beings have health
problems. Once he lets go of his attachment to being healed his health problems
will be gone.

Certain people haven't managed for a long time to let go of
their attachments to getting healed. Under normal circumstances when a person
suffers from a terminal illness he has actually reached the end of his lifespan.
He's suffering from a terminal illness and his life is supposed to end, but now
he has studied Dafa. Even though he comes in order to get cured, he is still
allowed to keep studying the Fa to understand the Fa. He also sees examples [of
the Fa] playing out in people's lives, but he still can't understand the Fa on
the basis of the Fa. He doesn't read the books, so he can't understand things on
the basis of the Fa. He only follows others in doing the exercises. He is still
thinking, "I've become a student of Falun Gong. I keep doing the exercises.
Why haven't I been cured?" Cultivation is a serious matter. That test of
one's mind is a black or white issue. The more attached you are, the worse you
will feel. When you go to the hospital for an examination you will be made to
see that your illness has gotten worse. Yet you still don't enlighten to it.
Since you still don't enlighten to it, it becomes more and more serious, and in
the end you truly can't make it. That happens because you are not a genuine
student, you don't study the Fa, and you can't let go of your attachment to your
illness. You are just an ordinary person who wants to get his illness cured. The
purpose of my disseminating Dafa is to save people at the fundamental level of
their being, not to help ordinary people get cured. If you can truly cultivate,
when you can truly let go of your attachment to living or your fear of
death--and not just act that way for others to see while constantly thinking
about it inside--then no matter what kind of illness you have, it will be cured.
In cultivation, the difference between humanness and godhood is just the
difference of one thought. This difference of one thought sounds easy, but it
can be achieved only with a deep and solid foundation in cultivation. If you can
really devote a lot of effort to studying the Fa, you will be able to achieve
that.

Of course, whenever that situation comes up, usually the
person is given one chance after another in Dafa over a long period of time,
because he has obtained the Fa, after all. He is continually given chances and
doesn't die, and he is given chance after chance. But if that person still
doesn't get it after being given chances for so long, even if he has cultivated
for years and has followed others in doing Dafa work, if he still can't let go
on a fundamental level of his attachment to getting healed, then on a
fundamental level he is still not a student, and he will depart when he reaches
the end of his lifespan. Ordinary people can do Dafa work too, and what they get
are blessings. When cultivators do Dafa work, they don't seek ordinary blessings
or a good life; the thing that is most important [to them] is raising their
level. Cultivators don't seek the things of this world. Isn't being attached to
your illness a pursuit of something in the human world? Some people say,
"Once my illness heals I'll be able to do so many good things for Dafa! Why
haven't I been cured yet?" Your getting well, your cultivating, and your
becoming a Dafa disciple would all be conditional. You would cultivate and
acknowledge [yourself as a Dafa disciple] only when your illness was cured.
Cultivation is done unconditionally though, and things are gained naturally,
with no pursuit.

Nothing is absolute, of course. What I was talking about were
Fa truths. People's situations are different, and I was just giving an example.
If everyone has a good understanding things will go smoothly. But when a person
can't let go of his attachments it becomes really hard.

Disciple: I'm a Dafa disciple from Ireland, and I would like to send
greetings to esteemed Teacher. For a long time now I haven't been doing well in
spreading the Fa or in personal cultivation. Is there still time for me to make
up for it?

Teacher: Then you should go ahead and do that. Since it's not over
yet, yes, there is still time left. (Everyone smiles and applauds) Even
if you haven't done well, no matter what, Master still doesn't want to leave any
of you behind. (Applause)

I've said before that the Fa-rectification of the cosmos is one stage and the
Fa's rectification of the human world is another stage. What that means is,
Master is doing this in two steps. So I haven't taught you the Fa of the Three
Realms, I have only taught you the Fa of the cosmos. I haven't talked about the
structures of the different living things in the Three Realms, the origin of
life, the structure of life, the history of the world, or the theories in this
world from religion to science, such as where those things came from, what their
purposes are, the reasons behind the different conflicts that take place in the
human world--well, everything in history. And as for the state of the structure
of the Three Realms and the different heavenly bodies in the Three Realms, I
haven't talked to you about those things because they're so insignificant in the
cosmos. The Three Realms doesn't deserve to be taught in Dafa, as they are too
low. When I teach you the Great Law it encompasses the Three Realms. In the
future you will know everything, and there won't be any need for me to tell you
about things of the Three Realms. In the future I will handle things that have
to do with human beings, and at that point I'll talk about the Fa of the Three
Realms. When in the future it's time to do things in the Three Realms, that will
be when the Fa rectifies the human world.

Because things are being done in two steps, a certain phenomenon has happened
in the cosmos. What kind of phenomenon? It's that the Three Realms has been
closed off all this time--the beings inside the Three Realms can't get out and
the beings outside of the Three Realms can't get in. I was the one who closed
things off from the beginning. The elements created early on by the old forces
were and are still there and haven't been cleaned away completely, and before
things are done at the surface of the human world, that portion of the old
forces' elements is still having a negative effect. So, because the Fa-rectification
and the Fa's rectification of the human world are being done in two different
steps, the Three Realms needed to be separated from the cosmos. Since the
beginning of my Fa-rectification--during the last ten-plus years--it has been
continually moving away from the cosmos. Astronomers have seen that the heavenly
bodies in the cosmos are no longer the heavenly bodies of the early times, and
the Milky Way's position is no longer the same as it was early on, and the other
star systems that were around the place where the Milky Way existed early on are
no longer the same. That has happened because the Three Realms is being
separated from the cosmos. Scientists discovered that fact when it was in the
process of being shifted, and they are saying that the cosmos is expanding. In
actuality it is the heavenly bodies separating themselves from the Three Realms,
as well as the Three Realms moving further and further away from its original
location. During the last ten-plus years, the Three Realms has been moving out
of the cosmos nonstop. As that has been happening, scientists have discovered
that the heavenly bodies have undergone immense changes. Stars that didn't exist
before have appeared, heavenly bodies that didn't exist before have appeared,
and star systems that didn't exist before have appeared. So where did the stars
and star systems that were originally there go to? Why has the cosmos undergone
such enormous changes? Those things have in fact come about as a part of the
movement of the Three Realms as it separates from the cosmos.

Hasn't the PureInsight website reported that? The cosmos is disappearing into
the distance faster than the speed of light, and the Milky Way is being
separated from the cosmos. Since it has reached the point where even human
beings can see this phase, it means that the separation has arrived at the most
surface level. Early on when I was beginning to do this, some gods told me,
"In the future, human beings will all be able to see the things that you
did, and they will realize in the end that you were the one who did them."
That is the case because certain manifestations will gradually converge on where
I am.

Once the separation is complete, the dimensions outside of the Milky Way
won't even exist. Human beings will find the emptiness terrifying. The stars
that used to exist outside of the Milky Way and all the heavenly bodies that
were scattered everywhere outside of the Milky Way will be gone. The PureInsight
website reported that our Milky Way will become the "lonely soul and
roaming ghost" of the cosmos. You might wonder, "What would be the
reason for that phenomenon?" It seems as though people--including
scientists--are indifferent to it, but it's only because they don't understand
it. If such a thing had happened in the cosmos in the past, then the Milky Way
would not have existed anymore. If separated from the cosmos, [the Milky Way]
would not have been able to exist and would have disintegrated. The Fa-rectification
of the cosmos and the Fa's rectification of the human world are being done in
two steps, so the Three Realms has to be separated from the cosmos. If the Fa-rectification
of the cosmos was complete--and everything was new and pure--but the Three
Realms was still so filthy, it would pollute the cosmos. It wouldn't do to have
such a filthy place inside such a wonderful cosmos, so it needs to be moved out
and taken care of separately. That's why they will be separated. (Applause)
Scientists have now discovered what I described.

Disciple: What do we do about correcting the Chinese characters in
"On Buddha Law / Lunyu" that some practitioners have hanging on their
walls...?

Teacher: Yes, you can correct the "On Buddha Law" text
hanging on your wall. Just make the corrections with the appropriate color. Well
actually, any method will do.

Disciple: How can we help newer students in China step forward?

Teacher: When it comes to newer students, you can't be too hasty with
them since they need to go through a process of improving their understanding.
If of their own initiative they offer to do something, then let them. But if
they don't want to do something out of their own initiative, I don't think we
can compel them to do anything, since they are still newer students after all.

Disciple: How should we view the big corporations outside of China that
are poised to make investments in China, and how should we look at our family
members' wanting to go back to China?

Teacher: If your family members don't cultivate and want to go back to
China, then that's fine. If you are a cultivator it's best that you don't go
back--wouldn't you be setting yourself up for persecution? As a Dafa disciple,
you wouldn't be able to bear not doing what Dafa disciples are supposed to do,
but if you did those things you would be persecuted. And also, there are things
here that you should do.

As for a lot of corporations planning to make investments in China, don't do
anything about that for now. You should just clarify the facts and tell people
what Dafa is about and why it's being persecuted. Bring to light the despicable
farces and all of the low acts committed by the government where they made up
lies and slander, expose the evil's suppression, tell the world's people about
these things and help them see all of this clearly--then you will have reached
your goal. When you clarify the truth just talk about things at that level and
don't go any higher. As far as some company wanting to make investments
somewhere, if you get a chance, all you can say is: "It's only because of
investments from you guys that the group of evildoers in China has the money to
fund the persecution. You can see how scary it is when they display their
wickedness, right? Hasn't your company been subjected to its coercion?" We
won't get involved with whether they make investments there. All we can do is
talk to them using principles at a very shallow level.

But I think that with material gain right in front of them some people are
willing to listen and some aren't, so that issue isn't the focus. The focus is
to tell people why Falun Gong is being persecuted and how evil the persecutors
are, and that will be enough. Once people can see those evil things clearly,
that will expel from their minds the poisonous elements from the propaganda
produced by the slanderous media of China's communist government. This means
you've saved those people, and that one act enabled them to make it to the next
stage. Otherwise when the Fa's rectification of the human world arrives and that
powerful gong comes...the Fa-rectification has standards, and at that
point they definitely won't have any other chances to understand [the truth].
The standards hold true from the highest place in the cosmos down to the lowest.
However a being is at that point, that will be it, and everything will be dealt
with in the fastest time. Those who should be weeded out will be weeded out,
those who should remain will remain, those who should be raised up will be
raised up, and those who should be lowered will be lowered. It will be over in a
flash. Whatever is in a being's mind determines what he [or his situation] is,
so there won't be any more chances at that point. If a person has the poison
from that wicked, villainous gang cleared away, then he will make it past that
stage. So at the very least he'll be able to witness the changes that happen in
the future.

Disciple: I'm a little disciple from Taiwan. On behalf of the little
disciples from Taiwan, I'd like to present a lotus flower to Master. (Master
smiles) (Audience smiles and applauds) We thank our magnificent Master.

Teacher: Thank you. This little lotus flower is truly beautifully
done. (Applause) This is the sort of consideration and thought that Dafa
disciples have put into clarifying the truth. You've really worked hard and have
come up with so many ideas to save people. Today's people are really hard to
save. [It seems as though] they'll listen only if what you tell them is in line
with their ideas, and they'll listen only if you talk to them in a way that they
like. In other words, if you want to save them, they have conditions for you to
do so. (Master smiles)

Disciple: Master, one of my family members practices and says that he's
special. He doesn't send righteous thoughts or clarify the truth, and he seldom
studies Fa other than Zhuan Falun. Right now in the Fa-rectification
period we are busy with all sorts of projects. If I spent a lot of time helping
him, I would find it hard to make enough time for other things.

Teacher: That's true. If he is a newer student, then you should show
some understanding towards him. If he is a veteran student, then he's definitely
in the wrong. As far as how to help him, there is no special method for doing
it. Take a look to see where he's off track and take the appropriate course of
action to address it. Remove the hurdle in his mind and find his attachment.

Disciple: How do we truly break apart the old forces' arrangements, move
beyond selfishness, and become true Fa-rectification disciples?

Teacher: The cosmos in the past was based on selfishness. Let's take
man as an example: when it came to crucial moments he truly couldn't care less
about others. When I started Fa-rectification, some gods said to me,
"You're the only one who gets involved in others' business." I know,
you find this hard to believe, because you are altruistic beings created by Dafa
that have roles in Fa-rectification and that have truly enlightened. If I didn't
do that, with the end of history all lives would end. When a being is
considerate of others in doing things and displays tolerance in the process,
it's because his starting point is selfless.

When Dafa cultivators find selfishness in themselves, they should gradually
work to overcome it. Becoming aware of it means that you have taken another step
forward in cultivation, because a non-practitioner can't become aware of it and
it doesn't occur to him to think about whether he is selfish. Only cultivators
make a practice of examining themselves and looking within.

Disciple: Dafa disciples from Fushun send their greetings to you. (Master
says "Thank you.") I have a slow-paced personality. I'm normally
slow when I work and am often criticized for it. Do I need to change my ways
when I'm doing work?

Teacher: There are indeed people who have a slow-paced personality. I
know I have a fast-paced personality, and I do everything very very quickly. If
you say something needs to be done, I'll be out the door before others are even
ready. (Master chuckles) (Applause) Put another way, I've
developed this fast pace, and I hurry up and hurry up with everything I do. Of
course, I'm not saying that a slow-paced personality is not good. Some people
have just gotten into the habit of doing things that way. But I think it's
better if we can speed up a little when it comes to saving people. (Master
smiles) (Audience laughs and applauds) But it's not that you have to
change your personality.

This is how beings in the cosmos are. Everyone is different: some are slow
while others are fast, and some tend to be anxious while others are even-keeled.
For some, they are just slow-paced with everything they do, and that can't be
called an attachment. However, you should hurry up in matters of saving people
and the things that Dafa disciples should do. I don't think that has anything to
do with your personality. You should know what "hurrying up" means no
matter how slow your personality is.

Disciple: I am a newer disciple. I'm very anxious to travel the Fa-rectification
path well, but I am not sure, is that a type of attachment? How do I tell?

Teacher: You are a student who recently obtained the Fa, so don't be
overly anxious. With many things you can't be held to the same requirements as
the veteran students. But there are indeed some newer students who have been
doing really well. They are deeply involved in doing things for Dafa and are
doing what Dafa disciples need to do. They are truly amazing. Sometimes I really
think those latecomers have great awakening capacity. Cultivation consists of
step-by-step improvement, and it's not realistic to expect you to soar to a high
level all at once and be like veteran students, since they, too, got to where
they are through cultivating and improving step by step. Now that you've
obtained Dafa you have nothing to worry about. Just go ahead and systematically
do what needs to be done, and do what Dafa disciples should do--go as far as
your understanding takes you with things. There's no problem with any of that.

Disciple: Would Master explain what effect it will have on our work if
Dafa disciples do well in their coordination and cooperation, and what the
result will be if we don't do those so well?

Teacher: The evil will take advantage and cause trouble if you don't
coordinate and cooperate well. With a lot of the Fa-rectification things, it's
not that there is no way to do them. No matter how hard it is, there is a path
for you to take, even though it is a fairly narrow one. You have to go down that
path correctly, and it won't work if you come up even a little short or stray a
little bit. Nevertheless, there is a path for you. In other words, you need to
go down it correctly. If you don't, the evil that currently exists will take
advantage of it and cause trouble. In fact what I've just been talking about is
the question of validating yourself versus validating the Fa when you work
together on something--that's the issue.

When everyone is discussing something, you may get upset over someone
expressing disapproval of your idea, but if nobody raises objections and
everyone says, "This is a pretty good idea, and that one's not bad
either"--so that nobody gets offended--I'd say that these students aren't
being very responsible to Dafa or to their own cultivation. They don't dare to
face a conflict and don't dare to address things directly, and they don't dare
to speak up when they see a problem. That is being too attached to self, and
that's selfishness. If you deal with a problem without the attachment to self
and calmly put forward ideas about how to tackle the problem well, I don't think
others will feel uncomfortable upon hearing it, because you're doing it for the
Fa. This is one point.

Another point is, if someone's proposal is rejected and that person feels
upset, then he really has a problem. Usually the only time when discussions
about matters of validating Dafa go off track is when some attachment to self is
stirred up. Go ahead and watch for this attentively--if you don't believe me,
when you leave here and go home watch for it attentively. When you're talking
something over, look at who is taking the conversation off track, and the person
who is doing that has a problem for sure. (Audience laughs and applauds)
The person who goes off topic is being attached to self, or when his concepts
are challenged, driven by a human mindset he gets upset and sets aside Dafa's
things. At those times he will be taken advantage of by the evil--he will stray
further and further from the original subject as he argues, and the evil will
take advantage. At that point he will get more and more upset, and the more
upset he gets, the more his human mindset is in fact intensified by the evil and
the less he is in a state of cultivation, so the evil will take advantage even
further. Where do you think a wicked understanding, or "enlightening"
along an evil path, come from? Isn't that where they come from? The evil takes
advantage of his attachments and makes fake thoughts show up in his mind, but he
considers them real and thinks they're quite reasonable. He's thinking,
"None of you understand me, and when all is said and done your cultivation
levels aren't as high as mine, and none of you understand the Fa as well as I
do." (Master chuckles) That's how it ends up.

Disciple: Dafa disciples' efforts in New York City have changed the
situation a lot, and many ordinary people have been moved by what they've seen
at our anti-torture exhibits. But more and more Westerners have told us that
they are seeing too many of those horrifying images, causing them to lose
sympathy for us. Would Master please enlighten us on that?

Teacher: Maybe they say that the anti-torture exhibits you hold to
clarify the truth are too shocking, but what I can tell you is that your actions
are positive, and the energy is righteous and compassionate, so it absolutely
will not shock people in any kind of negative way. Instead, the discomfort that
some people feel must have been caused by bad thoughts in those people's minds.
Don't people hang everywhere that graphic image of Jesus being crucified, with
his hands and feet pierced by nails and bleeding? Haven't people been viewing
that image for hundreds or thousands of years? So the problem doesn't lie in
what is presented. Haven't Dafa disciples been subjected to similar ordeals in
the persecution? You are not trying to use art to portray evil acts, you are
saving people. There must be a reason why some people have negative reactions,
there must be problems with their state of mind. Perhaps the evil is controlling
their minds, or if not, then it's that their notions are not right. Even the
people who sympathize with Dafa disciples have notions that have come out of
ordinary society, and in terms of understanding, they may feel uncomfortable
because of that. Don't worry, though, this can be resolved by a little more
thorough explanation.

A human being may form different notions in the world. Some people think
spicy food is good, some think sour food is, some like sweet food, and some like
bland. Those are all tendencies of one's own making. Even if a comedy is playing
in Manhattan, there are still a whole lot of people who don't like it and
criticize it. That's how human beings are. There are people on both sides,
positive and negative, and humans just live within the principle of mutual
generation and mutual inhibition. They can't all be the same. Maybe there are
more people out there who think the anti-torture exhibits are good, only they
haven't said so. We can no longer keep making compromises to accommodate those
with a lot of obstacles in their minds at the expense of saving good people. We
are saving the world's people. Some can't bear to see these things, but there
are more people who can, and who are moved, awakened, and saved. (Applause)

If someone thinks he can't stand it, well, let's think about it. With such a
righteous field and the evil exposed so explicitly, and all of what is shown is
actually happening in real life, yet there's this person who still raises issues
like that, then doesn't that person have problems? He does, for sure. No matter
how hard you work and how much you put into clarifying the truth, let me tell
you, there will always be people in this world that you can't save. There is
always going to be a portion that can't be saved. We can't be discouraged or
demoralized because of those people. How could we be affected by and thus go
along with whatever some people might say? We are here to change people, not to
be changed by them. (Applause)

Everything we are giving people is wonderful, and we are saving people. We
can't compromise to accommodate those who are no longer good and who obstruct
the salvation of people, leading to good people not being saved. Of course, when
we talk about those who are no longer good, they are not necessarily completely
bad, and perhaps it's caused by their notions. But you have to stay coolheaded
and rational when it comes to this. Don't be swayed by that small number of
people and don't be affected by people. You should be very clear in your mind
about what you're doing: you are saving people, you are doing the most righteous
and most magnificent thing! (Applause) Our students have taken such great
pains and overcome so much adversity in putting together the anti-torture
exhibits. It's no small feat.

The key is actually that we ourselves be clearheaded. We should act with the
power of conviction, not timidly or hesitantly. You can't see the fact that you
are beings walking the road to godhood. (Applause) So you are different
from ordinary people and you cannot be affected by them. The gods all admire you
for the things you're doing in Manhattan, they truly admire you. Whether it's
the gods that are playing positive roles or the ones playing negative roles,
they all admire you. The world's people do too. The universal values of what is
good and what is evil haven't changed.

Disciple: Is the question of priority involved when it comes to the Dafa
work we do in Fa-rectification? If some students want to do Dafa work related to
a specific nationality or language because of their own nationality or native
tongue, shouldn't they put that aside for the time being and focus on the Dafa
work at hand?

Teacher: It's not wrong to want to do Dafa work related to one's
nationality or language. Master can't give you specific answers to these
questions, because every student is doing things to clarify the truth and save
sentient beings. Maybe those people have things that they have to do. But when
it's necessary for you to work together on something as a group, Dafa disciples
need to cooperate well.

Disciple: I have a question. You said a little earlier that once the
persecution is over everything will be set. I'd like to ask, will the ordinary
people who are still deceived have any more chances?

Teacher: A being will be whatever is contained in his head, and both
for a being who is to be eliminated and one who is to have things end well for
him, it will be over instantly in one pass. Some people may say that they just
believe in a certain political party or that they just want to work for that
party. If the Law of the cosmos considers that party good, then they will be
kept when that flash of a moment comes; if the Law of the cosmos considers that
party evil, then they'll be wiped out when that moment comes. At that point
clarifying the facts will be no more and giving people extra chances to come to
some understanding will be no more. At that point there won't be such things
anymore, and people will be a member of whatever they contain and will be seen
as an element of it. A person will be a part of whatever his head contains, and
everything will be over in the blink of an eye.

Disciple: We often participate in community parades in the United States
and have been well received by a lot of groups. Would Master tell us how we
might help people come to know about Dafa while conforming to the way of
ordinary people to the greatest extent? When we have disagreements, should we
leave them for our own discussion or report them to Master? (Audience laughs)

Teacher: When you encounter problems you should talk them over
together since you are cultivating. It can't be that whenever you have a problem
you have Master go cultivate. (Audience laughs and applauds) Isn't that
true? So when you encounter problems you should figure out how to address them,
and whether you overcome those challenges or resolve them upon agreeing on a
solution, those are opportunities for you to establish mighty virtue. That
process is in fact the process of maturing, of moving towards the future, and is
one of the steps you take on the road to godhood. (Applause) You
definitely shouldn't leave the specifics to Master. (Audience laughs)

So how should you help all beings come to know Dafa? Once you've clarified
the facts and have truly helped people understand the persecution and know that
Dafa is a positive thing, that's good enough. If a person thinks that Falun Gong
is really good and expresses a desire to know more about Falun Gong, then you
may explain to him at an extremely basic level that Falun Gong asks its
practitioners to be good, and in the end you may tell him that we are striving
to become better and better people and to reach spiritual perfection. That is
all you can tell him, and you can't go beyond that. You would scare him if you
started telling him things at higher levels.

And people's realms of thought are different. For example, if you taught
college classes to a first grade kid, he'd refuse to go to school and he
wouldn't go to class anymore. (Applause) You have reached your current
realms and levels step by step through cultivation, and if you want to tell him
everything all at once, that's the same as wanting to lift him up from being an
ordinary person to where you are instantaneously. (Master chuckles) Even
I, your Master, don't do that. (Audience laughs) I can have a being,
after he is rid of all low-level factors, reach a level of any height, and I can
create beings at any height. But if you want a low-level being to understand
things at such high levels, under normal circumstances that being can't handle
it. So people have to understand step by step. Why do I ask you not to talk
about things at high levels? Why do I ask you to clarify the facts rationally?
That's why. So when some students are not quite rational and talk about things
at very high levels right away when clarifying the facts, and when they even
talk about gods-this and gods-that to government officials and tell them that
their Master is so-and-so (Audience laughs), people think that you're
talking nonsense. (Audience laughs) That's not the way to clarify the
facts. The understanding of a cultivator is acquired step by step through
cultivation, and in general people will find it very hard to comprehend if you
want them to understand things at such high levels right away. If they can't
understand, then it becomes counterproductive and in essence it will have a
harmful effect.

Disciple: Some new students have entered the Way and obtained the Fa over
the past two years in San Diego, California, and predestined people keep coming
every week to learn the practice. Some of those newer students are quite capable
and are qualified to get involved in projects to validate the Fa. Shall we have
them go straight into doing the three things or ask them to study the Fa and do
the exercises only, and then involve them later on in projects to validate the
Fa?

Teacher: I can see that you are very shorthanded and are anxious to
get some capable new students involved. But I still think it's better not to be
hasty. Why is that? Because when veteran students talk about things together and
are in that state where they are not very mindful of the way they come across,
it will scare the new students. [Because of] your energy, even though your words
might not be strong, to them they are strong. And though you might not raise
your voice, to them it sounds like thunder. (Audience laughs) That's
truly how it feels to them. So you should wait and not get the newer students
involved until they've gained a certain level of understanding and knowledge,
and had a chance to improve gradually--at least until they have some deeper
insight into Dafa. That way it won't lead to their giving up cultivation out of
a lack of understanding on something.

Disciple: Ever since the persecution began I've been bogged down with the
courses at my research institute and have had no time for anything else. I
haven't had much time for Dafa work and I surely haven't devoted 100% my time to
Dafa work. Will I reach the level I'm supposed to?

Teacher: If your job truly has you tied up it's not a problem. As you
do your job well, make time to study the Fa and use whatever chance you get to
do the things that Dafa disciples should do, like clarifying the facts. There
are always going to be busy times and not-so-busy times, and it can't be that
everyone is busy at the same time or everyone is not busy at the same time. Some
are busy when others aren't busy. For a cultivator, however, nothing is constant
forever. Whether for the moment you are busy or not, just do what you're
supposed to do, and everything may change as time passes. So this is what I
think: don't use being busy as an excuse for yourself to not do anything or to
neglect Fa study. And there are those who get really worried when they're busy,
and that won't do, either. Do what you can based on your situation.

What I just said does apply to clarifying the facts in Manhattan. Those who
have the ability and whose circumstances allow them to come may come, and those
whose circumstances don't allow them to come shouldn't. It's not that all of you
have to do things the same way. When all of you are doing things from your
hearts, then that is genuine. Master has never ordered you to do anything. All
I've done is to tell you what you should do, and some students go and do it.
Just do what Dafa disciples should do based on your situation and your ability
to do so. It won't work if you force things when your situation doesn't allow.
If you do that, you will bring about problems in both your daily life and your
cultivation, and that's no good.

Disciple: Dafa disciples in Turkey send their greetings to you. When might
you be willing to visit Turkey? What do you think of Turkey?

Teacher: The principal part of every single nation's population came
for Dafa, so I don't want to leave any nation behind as Dafa is spread. And that
is why I ask you to go clarify the facts. Dafa disciples in different regions
should indeed do well the things that should be done. The sentient beings are
waiting for you.

As for when I will visit Turkey, I'll definitely go when the opportunity
comes along. (Applause) I will travel to every corner of the globe in the
future (enthusiastic applause), because I have to take care of every
person you saved as you clarified the truth.

Disciple: I've seen some fellow practitioners who, after playing the role
of the evil policemen a lot in the anti-torture exhibits, demonstrate more demon
nature than before. Is there a correlation? (Audience laughs)

Teacher: No, there isn't. That's just in your mind. (Master smiles)
It will be okay once they go home, study the Fa, and adjust their mindsets a
little.

Disciple: Some Dafa disciples recently started a center for and school of
the arts, which are open to the public. I'd like to ask for Master's advice on
how we should go about playing our roles before the Fa rectifies the human
world, given the fact that there are so many Dafa projects going on and finances
are tight.

Teacher: Whether it's Dafa disciples running companies or opening
schools, I think these are normal activities that they do as members of society.
They are means to make a living and might create job opportunities for fellow
practitioners at the same time. Also, some ordinary people can be reached
through our interacting with society in this way, and they might come to benefit
from it.

You asked how you should go about playing your roles before the Fa rectifies
the human world. You can do it according to your ability. Running a school of
the arts is different from other professions. A school of the arts can teach
students to be good people by following Zhen, Shan, Ren. And the school can
participate in performances sponsored by Dafa disciples, helping people see
another side of the Dafa disciples and see for themselves the contrast between
the evilness of that political party and of that arch fiend and the goodness of
Dafa disciples. So this should be a really good thing. The Chinese New Year Gala
sponsored by New Tang Dynasty TV aims to reach out to and engage more Chinese
people so as to clarify the facts to them and save them. If the performances
were poor, then nobody would watch, and we wouldn't achieve our goal of saving
beings. Good performances will serve that purpose, or at least serve as a
bridge. If the school really becomes a success then it can participate in our
performances. So all of this is good.

Disciple: Some students have been cultivating for a long time and seem to
understand the importance of validating the Fa, yet they haven't been very
diligent. How do we help them?

Teacher: There are no miracle cures. Everyone has to cultivate himself
solidly before he can rise to higher levels. As far as those who aren't
diligent, take a look to see where their thoughts are stuck. There must be a
reason for their inadequate understanding of what Dafa disciples must do--try to
find out, what do they care about most right now? Since they are our students,
we have to take responsibility for them and talk to them. If they were ordinary
people we wouldn't need to worry about it. It is fine for ordinary people to
care about whatever they'd like. They don't want to cultivate, so we won't
bother them. Once somebody starts cultivating, though, that person will be in
danger amidst the evil's persecution if he can't keep up, so you have to take
responsibility for him.

Disciple: The "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese *** Party" that
has been carried by the newspaper run by Dafa disciples are great, but I worry
that ordinary people who don't understand us will say that we're getting
political.

Teacher: That won't happen. Everyone knows that that political party
is persecuting Falun Gong. All we're doing is telling people why that political
party is persecuting Falun Gong and, meanwhile, telling them what that party
hopes to achieve through its persecution, why the CCP
is persecuting Falun Gong, and what fundamental differences there are between
Falun Gong and the CCP. So we'll just talk about what that political party is
and why it is opposed to Zhen, Shan, Ren. But as far as cultivation is
concerned, one of our principles of personal cultivation and of clarifying the
facts is that we don't get involved in those things. There is an important
connection between the media's exposure of the CCP's persecution of Dafa
disciples and saving all beings. The persecution of Falun Gong has been carried
out in the name of that certain political party, one that has poisoned many
people in the course of its persecution. In order to save those people it's
important to help them see that party for what it is.

The Minghui website has not reported on this because, from a perspective
that's closer to Dafa cultivation, it is not a key issue. The media reports are
another way of saving all beings.

As far as who will govern China in the future, whoever wants to, let him.
That has nothing to do with us. Whether he is good or bad, that's a human
matter, and we are cultivators. If you didn't persecute us, then we wouldn't
need to expose you. You have the gall to do those terrible things, so why don't
you have the courage to face up to it?

Disciple: A lot of students who were involved with making FGM television
programs don't do them anymore since they are tied up with the recent
truth-clarification efforts in Manhattan and preparations for the New Year's
Gala.

Teacher: Master can't say anything about that because those are things
for you to work out yourselves. They are all important. I watch all of the
programs done by FGM--every one of them. (Applause) So they are all
important, and you shouldn't overlook any one of them. In fact, I see that all
of you are truly busy, and each person is working on multiple projects.
Coordinate among yourselves, Master can't say anything specific.

Disciple: (Translated question) Since the great firmament was created by
Dafa, how could it be in such an improper state today that it needs Master to
rectify it? Disciples from Hamilton, New Zealand, send their greetings to
Master.

Teacher: Thank you. (Applause) The cosmos's former
characteristics determined the cycles it went through. So, what were the
characteristics? They were "
formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction-emptiness, " and that is what the
old cosmos is like. The cosmos is enormous, and when degeneration and
destruction took place on a small scale or in a localized area, that area was
blown up in an explosion, and then a void followed. After it became a void, the
matter still existed, so the gods would use that dead matter to create a new
layer in the cosmos from scratch. The process is very similar to human
metabolism. If problems cropped up in a larger area, then that larger area had
to be blown up and new beings were created afterwards. No one thinks about
whether his metabolism has anything to do with mercy. Well, high-level gods in
the cosmos look at the process of formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction the
way humans look at metabolism--they have no concept of whether it's merciful or
not. The cosmos is alive, and if the cells in part of this organic body were no
longer up to par, then that part needed to be weeded out and replaced. That's
why a similar process occurs in humans: birth-aging-sickness-death.

The future cosmos will be different in that regard. Once something reaches
the stage of degeneration, it will be made whole and renewed so that it becomes
good again. So that is different from the old cosmos. (Applause)

All of the future beings will be selfless, while the beings of the past were
selfish. (Applause) Some beings have no regard for others as they pursue
the things they want, and that has been demonstrated in this world thoroughly.
For the sake of proving a point or to save face, some people in the world go to
any length to harm others and never consider others' welfare. Some people's
selfishness surfaces in a very vicious way--some of them deliberately seek out
people to push around and always look down on others. Who gave them the right to
do that? Nobody. You shouldn't be like that, nobody that cultivates in Dafa
should be like that.

Disciple: Thank you, venerable Master, for your merciful salvation. Please
help us understand how to put the skills we've acquired in society to use in
truth clarification.

Teacher: I think that every Dafa disciple is making use of his skills
and abilities to save all beings and validate Dafa. Dafa disciples are running
websites, and media outlets such as radio stations and TV stations, and it's all
for the singular purpose of clarifying the facts. At this point the Chinese
communist government and that arch fiend's evil, villainous faction have used
financial leverage so that they now have society's media in the palm of their
hand. Nobody is reporting on the persecution we're being subjected to, so with
no other recourse, Dafa disciples have worked together to do these things. What
I mean is, you have taken it upon yourselves to do these things, and Master
didn't specifically take the lead on any of these things. It's true that Master
has affirmed what you've done or told you what I felt you should do--that much I
can say. But, as for what each person should do, Master can't tell you too
specifically. That's because once Master said something, others would think,
"Master has asked him to do that," and you too would think,
"Master has asked me to do that," so then you wouldn't do or take care
of anything else. And when you were needed with other things, you would have an
excuse: "Master asked me to do this." (Teacher chuckles)
I would have given you an attachment, and that's no good. So you need to do a
lot of things on your own. You should establish your own mighty virtue, and that
is what's truly magnificent.

Disciple: As we're clarifying the facts, if some people acknowledge that
the persecution is wrong but Dafa doesn't resonate with them, and we don't have
time to clarify things more thoroughly for the time being, what should we do?
Should we make helping people know about the persecution first priority and do
that on a large scale?

Teacher: It doesn't matter whether Dafa resonates with them or not.
But if they have a negative view of Dafa, that is a result of being poisoned by
the evil, and it's necessary for you to clarify things to them. In general when
it comes to clarifying the facts, it means talking about the persecution--you
don't need to talk about things related to Dafa cultivation. It's fine if people
don't want to cultivate. You should tell them that we are a group of good
people, and our Dafa teaches people to be good. [You might want to have an
attitude like,] "It doesn't matter whether it resonates with you, I'm not
trying to persuade you to learn Dafa. I'm just trying to tell you that the
persecution is wicked and that what you know is actually venomous
disinformation." And that will be enough. Those who come to learn the Fa do
so of their own accord, not because they were dragged into it. You absolutely
must remember this: we don't want to impose anything on anyone.

Disciple: We have been sending a lot of e-mails to China. The e-mail team
has been dealing with tremendous challenges, both with technology and in terms
of manpower. Is this because of xinxing problems with the people left on our
team or is it because the old forces blocked us off?

Teacher: You each have your own path. I think there are two reasons
behind what you brought up: first, there are just so many things to do and as a
result you are shorthanded; and second, maybe you've overlooked things in your
personal cultivation, so the evil has taken advantage of the gaps, as Dafa
disciples need to do each of the three things. Some people have said,
"Master, in recent years, especially since July 20, 1999, I've found that
my improvement through reading the book has slowed down. It's not like before,
when I had that really good feeling of making a breakthrough every day and of my
understanding improving really quickly." Why is it that you don't feel as
good now reading the book as you did before? It's not that the Fa isn't powerful
anymore. It's that the requirements are higher, and that Dafa disciples must do
all three things well before they will see improvement. (Applause)

Some people who started studying the Fa in the earlier period say that they
read the book at home and that they won't go out and do the things that Dafa
disciples must do. I'm thinking that those people are not too far away from
having a wicked understanding, and they are lucky if they haven't begun to
stray. Over the past few years, Dafa disciples have been validating the Fa
amidst the persecution and saving beings through clarifying the truth. Those
people won't improve at all, no matter how much they may read the book at home.
If you don't do the things that Dafa disciples should do, not only won't you
improve, but you will only slide downwards. "Dafa disciple"... "Dafa
disciple," what does being a "Fa-Rectification Period Dafa
Disciple" mean? It is the foremost title and the most magnificent
being in the cosmos. If you only care about your own salvation, will that do?
How could that be called being a "Dafa disciple"? What is a "Fa-Rectification
Period Dafa Disciple"? Have you validated the Fa? You came when Dafa
benefited you, yet you hid out and didn't dare to speak up for Dafa when it
faced danger. You have shown yourself to be less worthy than an ordinary person,
so what's the point of "studying the Fa at home"? All beings are being
poisoned in the persecution, so how could you feel at ease being in hiding? Why
are Dafa disciples clarifying the truth and saving beings? Because that is Dafa
disciples' duty. That is the kind of being that I, Li Hongzhi, want, and a Dafa
disciple is that kind of cultivator.

Disciple: It seems that fellow practitioners as a whole do not pay much
attention to overcoming the evil's economic persecution, so a lot of
practitioners have long been at low-paying jobs, and have thereby been limited
by time and financial constraints in validating the Fa.

Teacher: That problem does indeed exist, but sometimes it's our own
doing or our own shortcoming of not taking everything into consideration that
causes those things to happen. Dafa disciples are walking on a righteous path in
validating the Fa and are saving all beings, so all aspects of that path,
including financial conditions, should come together. If you don't do well in
certain regards the evil will take advantage of the gap. With anything, as long
as you do it well, everything will change.

Disciple: Would you say a few words to disciples who are involved in
composing music? We haven't done as well as the disciples who are artists.

Teacher: We're not concerned with comparisons between artist disciples
and musician disciples and who's doing better than whom. (Audience laughs)
Those are just matters of self-improvement and differences in level. The Dafa
disciples who compose music have a special duty to do so, and that is on top of
clarifying the truth. To save all beings, Dafa disciples have composed some
songs, including ones performed at the Gala. Those songs were composed by Dafa
disciples themselves, and it's pretty remarkable. On the day when I taught the
Fa to the artist Dafa disciples, I also attended the meetings of the disciples
responsible for creating music and theatre arts, and I taught the Fa there. It
wasn't recorded at the time, though. I'll say more on this in the future when
the opportunity comes along. (Applause)

Disciple: There are many disciples who do not pay attention to their
appearance and how they carry themselves, such as the way they look, speak, and
behave.

Teacher: Let me talk about something extra here. Traditionally
different gods have had different views on individual human beings' appearances.
You may know that some people who cultivated the Dao in the past didn't care
much about how they looked. At least the Daoists who cultivated in this world
were like that, and especially the lesser ones, who cared even less about
outward appearances. They were pretty slovenly and didn't groom themselves. A
small number of them even cultivated in a dirty setting on purpose. Why was
that? They felt that for a cultivator, being too particular about the way one
dressed was an attachment and that it was better to be casual about it. And what
other phenomenon did they see? Cultivation forms in the past cultivated
assistant souls, so they discovered something in their cultivation, which was,
over time as a person cultivated, everything on his body started to have energy
on it. Those people looked bad on this side, but in the eyes of the assistant
souls that had completed cultivation on the other side, those things all looked
good. That happened because the matter in this dimension changes as a person
cultivates, and it gains energy. So as the energy increases, what shows on the
other side is supernatural treasure made of energy, from the other side the dirt
and mud all over the person's body look like treasures covering the body,
glittering and dazzling. But on this side--the human world--what one saw was
filth covering the person's head and entire body, he was just dirty from head to
toe, with just a lot of dirt and mud on the body. Consistent practice led to the
mud and dirty things being fortified by the energy gained through cultivation,
so the things the assistant souls took away were all good ones. They saw that,
so they intentionally refrained from grooming themselves.

Now let's look at it from another angle. As you know, in Western society
people care a lot about appearance and demeanor. Since they don't have that
culture of cultivation, they have no concept of these matters. The cultivation
in Buddhism teaches that everything a cultivator has was granted to him by the
Buddha--he will get whatever Attainment Status the Buddha gives him, and he will
get whatever he is supposed to get and not get what he's not supposed to get.
The same goes for gods in the West. Of course, though, Dafa is different from
all prior forms of cultivation.

Before the 1960s, as the Western students may recall, the men were
gentlemanly, well mannered, and civilized. The women were gracious and placed a
lot of importance on being well educated and cultured. Humans might have thought
it was good, and actually gods didn't think it was all that bad, either. But it
led to human beings easily becoming obsessed with it. It got to a point where a
person's worth was judged by his manner of speaking and demeanor. A person was
deemed noble--or not--based on that, rather than on his fundamental character.
Later on, since all human beings came here to obtain the Fa, all actions and
tendencies that stood in the way of cultivation had to be removed, and so the
old forces got involved and they did that with the approach of using a bad thing
to fight a bad thing. Do you know why, once the 1960s began, hippies and street
artists appeared, people started having a slovenly appearance and acting against
traditional values, and when it came to clothes, the more casual it was, the
more fashionable it was? People's outer layer of clothing was smaller than their
inner layer, their sleeves covered their hands and only their fingertips were
left exposed, the waists of their pants got lower, with their pant legs bunched
up on top of their feet--basically, the sloppier it was, the better. I can tell
you that it was definitely not just a fashion trend. The old forces did it in
order to remove that human fixation on appearance by using a bad thing to fight
a bad thing. There is actually nothing wrong at all with dressing neatly, but
nothing should become a fixation. Once something becomes a fixation, the human
mind has deviated and that leads those human beings to go to extremes with it.

Before the Cultural Revolution in China, the Chinese were quite neat, clean,
and civilized, with five thousand years of civilization behind them. You know
that the Japanese have always been very clean and neat, right? A few centuries
ago when things were not as developed, the Japanese would bathe in a wooden
barrel every day with water that was heated in a big pot. They did that even
during periods that were extremely underdeveloped. And do you know what? That
was the way people lived in the Tang Dynasty, too--it was exactly the same with
people in the Tang Dynasty. It's not that the people in ancient times were not
clean. It's that today's people don't know how the ancients lived. The people in
different dynasties and different periods were all the same, they didn't change.
The only difference was with the way they dressed. Today's people portray the
ancients as being backward, but that actually comes out of reasoning based on
the theory of evolution. The Cultural Revolution did away with the "Four
Olds"[2]
and thought of
cleanliness and tidiness as a "bourgeois mentality"--to quote the
absurd words of a certain political party, it was a "bourgeois
mentality." They would cut off women's braids, if they found someone
walking down the street with high heels they would take the shoes off their feet
and chop off the heels, and they would use scissors to cut apart any
nice-looking clothes you might have on. That political party in China put
forward the slogan of "get a hand full of calluses, roll around until
covered with mud, and live with 'revolutionary bugs' all over the body." (Audience
laughs) It took only a few years to completely ruin the Chinese
civilization.

I do know that some Caucasian students frown upon the appearances of some
Chinese students. [That kind of appearance] is a product of being in that
society, and over time they got used to it and it came to be a habit, and they
aren't aware of the inappropriateness of their actions and demeanor. Nothing
should go to extremes, of course, so keep to the way of human beings as much as
possible, and act like a normal, dignified person. You can't be too sloppy,
casual, careless about manners, or informal.

In fact, from a cultivation perspective, even though it doesn't make a
difference whether or not you pay attention to the way you look and it won't
affect your cultivation, the key is that you can't get attached either way. The
Chinese would say, "I just like to be casual. The more casual the better.
It's so much easier to be sloppy and untidy." I would say that isn't good.
A Dafa disciple should be a role model for others and look like a dignified
human being. When I was teaching the Fa and giving classes in Mainland China, I
always dressed formally, and it was to set an example for you. (Applause)
And that is because some people feel that actions speak louder than words.
Whether those people are right or not, some practitioners just want to copy what
Master does--"I'll dress how Master dresses." (Audience laughs)
So I pay attention to the way I look and so should all of you. The Cultural
Revolution did indeed ravage the Chinese culture so terribly, it destroyed five
thousand years of civilization in a matter of a few years. So Chinese should pay
more attention to their appearance and demeanor, Western students should refrain
from judging people based on appearance, and Asian students as a whole should
mind their behavior more. (Audience applauds) No one should go to
extremes.

Disciple: How should we look at things that have had a negative effect on
ordinary people in the Fa-rectification period?

Teacher: Yes, you might clarify the facts very well, but if people
find you to be too displeasing to the eye and hear you using crude language,
they won't think you are credible. If you don't do well in truth clarification
you will have a negative effect. You need to bear all of this in mind.

Disciple: How should we as disciples look at the incident that happened in
Argentina?

Teacher: As far as that goes, I think that if anyone persecutes Dafa
disciples we should hold them accountable. We will explain the facts if that's
what is needed, and when someone is injured, we'll take it to the courts if
necessary. There are precedents for all these things, and you can do whatever
you need to.

Disciple: If my mind isn't clear or calm when I do the exercises, can I
cleanse myself the way we do during the five minutes right before we send forth
righteous thoughts?

Teacher: You may send forth righteous thoughts whenever your mind is
not clear and calm or your mind comes under interference. If you want to make an
adjustment or send forth righteous thoughts, you don't have to be constrained by
time. You may do it at any time and you can just stop when you feel your head is
cleared and your righteous thoughts are strong.

Disciple: Are the requirements for doing the three things that Dafa
disciples do the same for kids as for adult disciples?

Teacher: No, they're different. The little disciples are different in
terms of their skills, communication abilities, and the attention they can get
from society. So the requirements can't be the same. Kids and adults are not the
same--kids are kids. I've talked about this many times before.

Disciple: You've been talking for nearly three hours. Master is working so
hard. Many disciples would like Master to drink some water. (Applause)

Teacher: It's no problem. I think that since there are still so many
question slips, I won't address those that have been touched on already.

Disciple: Some students say that we can ease up on going to the consulates
and embassies for now since Manhattan is more important.

Teacher: They are all important, and no place can be overlooked. (Applause)

Disciple: We are a married couple who are both disciples, and we have a
ten-year-old boy. He's been attending the Minghui School for three years, yet he
still often fights with people, lies, and exhibits bad manners.

Teacher: A kid, well, sometimes he might still have the traits of a
kid, and the people he comes into contact with will play a role in it as well.
Mankind is a big dye vat, and if there were anyone who was untouched by this dye
vat, then he would be a god. Even Dafa disciples who are cultivating need to
clean themselves off often, and that's even more so for a kid.

And also, if the parents have problems in certain respects, the kid will
reflect that. Those will be intentionally shown to Dafa disciples and to the
parents. Let's not go on about this too much. He's a kid, after all.

Disciple: The Korean language used to include lots of Chinese characters,
but since the beginning of modern times it has generally used Korean only, and
that gets in the way to a certain extent with Falun Gong spreading widely.
Please shed some light on this.

Teacher: I remember that in the past the entire Asian region, and I'm
not referring to Middle-Eastern countries or India, used Chinese characters or
at least partially used them, since there were a lot of Chinese people there.
The Chinese were doing business or even became government officials there, so
there were quite a lot of Chinese schools, too. In the past, the Chinese
language was widely used in the Asian region, whether in business or cultural
exchanges. That made things quite easy. But the old forces were just intent on
impeding the world's people from obtaining the Fa and at the same time creating
adversity for me to do Fa-rectification. So it asked that political party to do
a terrible thing.

The old forces thought, "If the Chinese language is used [by all of
these countries], it will be too easy for people to obtain the Fa and too easy
for your Falun Gong to spread around the world." Then the old forces
wouldn't have been in control when it came time for them to do what they wanted
to. In order to do what they wanted to, they took advantage of people's concept
of nationalism so as to have them promote their native cultures, creating
symbols [for language] that gods don't see as words. One time at a conference of
Communist nations in the then Soviet Union the CCP stated
openly, "There are so many of us Chinese in Southeast Asia, a huge number.
With just one rallying cry from us those places will turn into nations of our
political party." And you know, there were a lot of journalists attending
that conference, and they quickly spread that news to the entire world. The
conference hadn't even finished when the entire Southeast Asian region began a
major campaign against the Chinese. Did you know how that "rejection of the
Chinese" started? That's where it came from. In South Asia in particular,
the schools run by Chinese were forced to close, the Chinese people there had to
take on local surnames and given names, and the use of the Chinese language was
prohibited. Furthermore, many countries passed laws and amendments to their
Constitutions that prohibited use of the Chinese language. So that created a
great many challenges for people in certain regions when it comes to studying
and obtaining the Fa today.

Of course, the old forces couldn't anticipate Dafa's might. People not just
in Asia, but anywhere in the world, can translate the Great Law into different
languages, and the inner meaning of the Great Law remains unchanged no matter
what language it is in. But the obstacles were immense for the first group of
Dafa disciples, who joined during the Fa-rectification period. The interference
against those who obtained the Fa early remains quite intense.

Disciple: The literature that disciples are distributing in Hong Kong
contains several stories with the theme of "recite 'Dafa hao'[3]silently and your health problems will be cured." This has led
some Mainland Chinese tourists to mistakenly think that we're pushing the idea
that if people have health problems they don't need to take medicine and will be
healed just by saying to themselves that Dafa is great.

Teacher: Saying "Dafa hao" is not only effective for
ordinary people, but also for Dafa disciples since it clears away the bad things
in the mind. When you have every cell in your body saying that Dafa is great,
you will find that your entire body feels the reverberations. (Applause)
It is the Fa that your mind is invoking, so that's why it is so powerful. But I
think it's best to clarify the truth with wisdom. Outside Mainland China you
don't need to do this or to clarify the truth this way. The environment is more
relaxed and you can clarify things to people based on reason. In Mainland China
the environment is different, the extent to which people have been poisoned by
the slanderous propaganda varies and they thereby have different views on Falun
Gong, and people from Mainland China have a certain degree of cultural context
for and background on qigong, so you can do it this way among the broader
populace in Mainland China. But you don't need to do it this way in urban areas
or if you're outside Mainland China. You don't need to do it this way in Hong
Kong either. Just tell them the facts in an open and dignified way, and that
will be fine.

Disciple: As we've spread the Fa and clarified the truth, some Western
ordinary people have been moved and have brought us cookies, fruit, and other
things. We would like to ask if it's appropriate to accept them. We've discussed
this a few times and students have had different opinions.

Teacher: It depends on the situation. If people give you something out
of sincerity and earnestness yet you refuse it, that really is a little
impolite. Those things aren't too expensive, so it's fine to accept them after
you thank the person. But you need to take it case by case. If somebody wants to
give you a huge amount of food, then it really wouldn't be appropriate to accept
it. Handle it on a case-by-case basis, and as an alternative you could give them
money for it. Some people truly do that out of kindness, though. They see that
you are cold, and they bring you some coffee or food, so you can go ahead and
thank them for it. It's fine too if you want to give them money. If they don't
want to take it, then just thank them a lot. Deal with these things based on the
situation.

Disciple: There are some ordinary people's media and TV producers who want
to do programs about Dafa now, and they want some of our footage. We'd like to
ask Master how we should handle that.

Teacher: It depends on what kinds of programs they want to do. If they
want to shoot our parades and anti-torture exhibits, they are free to do so,
since those are public events in the first place. But if they want to do
programs about the special aspects of your lives, about how you study the Fa and
cultivate, then I'd say turn them down. Why turn them down? Because you don't
know what they're after and how far they will go with it. Besides, studying the
Fa and cultivating are a very solemn thing, and it's not solemn to put them in
the middle of some ordinary people's commentary. That's why you should turn them
down, and also, it's really hard for people to truly understand us.

A little earlier I talked about how cultivators in the past were sloppy and
untidy. I want to stress again that you shouldn't get attached to that. Some of
you are thinking, "Wow, those untidy and dirty things might turn into good
things. Then I'll be dirty too." (Audience laughs) I want to make it
clear to you: that's when it is the assistant souls who are getting things! So
you shouldn't copy those things. Even if those things could really turn into
good ones and the master soul could get them, that's not the way we cultivate in
Dafa. Dafa disciples, let me tell you, in the future you will have everything. (Applause)

Disciple: (Translated question) I haven't done well in
clarifying the facts to my family and thus have not explained clearly the things
I'm doing in validating the Fa. I want them to understand that Falun Dafa is
good and that I am not doing anything extreme. I'd like to ask Master, how
should we explain to our family what we're doing? Also, I would like to greet
Master on behalf of students from Spanish-speaking countries!

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause) Western society is
actually quite unfamiliar with the kind of cultivation that Chinese practice.
When I started teaching the Fa, I was thinking, "How high a level of
understanding will they be able to reach? And how will the public view it?"
Actually, although the differences in culture have caused them to find foreign
the [Chinese] way that thoughts are expressed and the concept of a human
becoming a god, the goodness and kindness that cultivators show and the positive
energy Dafa emits can lead anyone to think that it's good. Just like with
clarifying the truth, you should talk to your family in increments about
cultivation in Dafa. You should first tell them what Dafa is all about and then
slowly let them know that you are learning it. Actually I don't think this is a
big issue--a lot of times, it's just your own human thoughts.

Talk to them openly and straightforwardly, but make sure you
don't talk at too high a level. They may be your family, but if you say, "I
don't want to hide anything, so I'll tell them everything I know"... (Audience
laughs) Master is not telling you to lie. I'm saying that you shouldn't talk
about things at high levels, or it will scare them. Since understanding the Fa
is done step by step, if you talk about things at a high level right away they
will be unnerved. What you can say is, "This practice is really good and
it's great for health. It's good for the mind and body and it raises people's
moral standards. This book is excellent. Do you want to read it? Would you be
interested in knowing more about it?" Just talk about it starting from the
most basic level, and let them discover more about it on their own and read it
themselves. Since Zhuan Falun starts from the truth at the level of the
lowest beings, the human level, people can understand the Fa by reading Zhuan
Falun. If you start talking about it at a low level, your family members
that don't know much about it will not oppose it. If you talk about things at
high levels and mention Buddhas and larger universes right from the beginning,
they will wonder if there's something wrong with you. (Audience laughs)
And that is because they truly can't accept what you say. Besides, Western
religions teach that there is only one god; their understanding is that there is
only one god in the cosmos. So that kind of thing is really hard for them to
accept. Understanding has to come bit by bit.

Disciple: Hello, Master! I'd like to ask if in the future
Chinese characters will be standardized according to the traditional style.
Thank you.

Teacher: Actually, I haven't thought about that. In fact,
the traditional style that people use nowadays is itself something that has
evolved from the most ancient characters, and it went through incremental
changes to get to where it is now. People in the current cycle of human
civilization started out using inscriptions on bones and shells. From there that
developed into greater and lesser seal scripts, and later it was official
script, followed by regular script. There haven't been any major changes after
regular script. Then of course in recent times, various forms of decorative
script have emerged, such as the boldface style, the Song typeface, and so on.
As far as the traditional script versus the simplified script, it's all fine as
long as Dafa disciples can read it and understand the Fa. Don't worry about
that, as it is a matter for the people of the future. Even if [what you
described] is something Master will do in the future, it has nothing to do with
Dafa disciples. After Consummating, why would you be concerned with what goes on
here in the human world? There would be no point. Let's stop worrying about
these things. It will become another attachment if you think too much about it.
Leave what belongs to the future for the future.

Disciple: How do we balance doing everything righteously and
conforming to society as much as possible? What do you think about taking out
loans to develop media? How about pyramid schemes, something which has stirred
up a lot of controversy among fellow practitioners both in and outside of China?

Teacher: Dafa disciples cannot do bad things. Pyramid
schemes are not used in Western society anymore. That's outright cheating
people. It rips people off tier after tier, and the latecomers get exploited the
most.

[You're asking about] Dafa disciples getting involved in
pyramid schemes? Is it right to be obsessed with making money off others? No,
it's not. If you do that, you are not doing legitimate business. There should be
a loss for every gain, with commodities changing hands, but what are you
doing? Racking your brain to rip people off. You can't do that! I told you that
long ago. You can't get into pyramid schemes, and whoever does is wrong. Among
the Dafa disciples in China, whoever gets into pyramid schemes is disrupting the
form of cultivation that Dafa disciples do. They will have to bear all the
consequences for that later on. (Applause)

As for taking out bank loans to develop a media outlet, I
don't support it. That's because when it comes to Dafa disciples, if you ask
them to do media work or write articles, that front line work, they can do it.
But it's really hard for you to manage a business of some sort or solicit ads,
since you have grown a little unaccustomed to interacting with ordinary people.
So how would you repay the loans once you took them out? The advertisements are
hard for you to come by, yet you want to take out a loan when you can't get
advertisements for the media? If you were to pay it off, you would have to pay
with advertising revenues and newspaper profits. I don't support your taking out
loans--don't ever go into debt. You shouldn't go into debt.

Disciple: Ever since Master told us to spend more effort
helping students in Mainland China, I have often made phone calls to fellow
practitioners in China who stay at home to cultivate. But still they won't step
forward. I am really worried about them, especially since the Fa-rectification
has entered the concluding stage. May I ask Master what I should do to help
them?

Teacher: Helping fellow practitioners is something that
should be done, and there is nothing wrong with not wanting to leave anyone
behind. But if they really can't step forward, well, you've done your best.
Actually you can try to find out what their mental hurdles are and where their
obstructions lie. Once you determine what their hurdles and obstructions are,
then those can probably be resolved. But for a lot of people, I think they're
just afraid. For a god or a cultivator, fear is considered a major attachment,
and it truly won't do if it's not removed. So do what you can based on their
situations, though there is nothing you can do if they truly refuse. Some people
really will leave you disappointed by not fulfilling their potential and not
living up to expectations. There wasn't anything like this with the cultivators
of the past, as they would just think, "Who cares about you. If you can't
make it or can't live up to expectations then you're finished. Just go home and
that's it, it's not as if I am sitting here just dying to save you." Only
Dafa disciples would do what we do. (Applause)

Disciple: Over the past two months, we have seen that a lot
of people from the middle or lower segments of society in New York have accepted
our fliers, whereas 70% of the people from the main part of society have not
gotten our literature. How do we break through that? If we dressed formally,
like we're doing today, would that make a difference?

Teacher: That's not the problem. The problem is what I
explained earlier: the Chinese who work in the companies here have been poisoned
by the slanderous propaganda of the wicked, base group that persecutes Dafa, and
it is those people, who don't know the truth, that are helping the evil to
spread the venom. They are the main cause [of the problem]. You have to start
there if you want to resolve the problem. Americans think those people are
credible since they are colleagues, and so they listen to them not knowing that
those people, too, are victims.

Disciple: A lot of Asian countries close to China have been
interfered with a great deal. I'd like to ask esteemed Master, can Western
disciples go there to help improve the situation?

Teacher: The students in those nations are basically
doing that. But a handful of governments are really afraid of China's communist
regime, so some governments have acted very badly. If you are busy with
something else, you don't have to work on this matter for now. But if you have
the time, you may try to see if you can do something. All I can say is that you
can give it a try and see how it goes. When looking at those countries'
behavior, treat that as you would a person failing to live up to expectations.

Disciple: Dafa disciples from Australia send their greetings
to Master.

Teacher: Thank you. (Applause)

Disciple: May I ask Master how we should handle the balance
between clarifying the truth in various countries and local areas, and
clarifying the truth to people in New York and Beijing?

Teacher: They are all important. You should do it
wherever your circumstances best allow.

Disciple: Greetings to Master from all Dafa disciples in
Singapore. Indonesian Dafa disciples also asked me to relay their greetings to
Master when I saw you.

Teacher: Thank you. (Applause)

Disciple: Master, are conflicts among people the same as
conflicts among cultivators? Why does it seem to me that conflicts among
cultivators are always difficult to resolve? On the surface they are getting
along, when in actuality they are displeased with one another. If this goes on
for long, what should we do about it? (Audience chuckles)

Teacher: What should you do about it? (Audience
chuckles) Indeed, what should you do about it? You're cultivators, so how
could you be like that? But I know, and I'll tell you the same thing again:
although certain problems with certain people may seem glaring, they have in
fact cultivated very well with some things that don't show. You can't compare
them to ordinary people, and even less should you think that the conflicts they
have are simply conflicts. Those are opportunities for them to improve
themselves.

If you were all one big harmonious group, everything was
really calm and just fine with all of you, no one upset anyone else, and
everyone was making others happy, then that would be bad, (audience laughs)
it really would be, for you couldn't cultivate then. If nobody's antagonism came
to the surface and you couldn't help each other improve, then it wouldn't be a
cultivation group. What differentiates us most from ordinary people is, when
conflicts and tensions arise, we are able to examine ourselves. (Applause)
It's absolutely not that we don't have conflicts come up. When certain aspects
of ourselves that we have not cultivated well come out, there will be friction,
and there will be discord and differences in opinion. Then look to see where the
problems lie. Each person should examine himself for the reasons: "Did I do
something poorly, and that's what made people disagree with me?" And the
other party should do some thinking too: "Was there a problem with the way
I brought up the issue, and that's what made people not accept it?" If each
person can examine himself, then that is cultivation. If you didn't examine
yourself then you have not cultivated, or at least in terms of that one issue.

There are cases where the conflicts last quite a long
time, but sooner or later they will have to see where their problems lie. It's
better to get rid of them sooner than later. No one should expect to achieve
Consummation when they are still enmeshed in conflicts and attachments. (Applause)

Disciple: Buddhism originated in India, but later on it
disappeared from India. Nowadays in India there are many different cultures and
languages, and that makes it hard for Dafa to spread there. Is this because of
the old forces' arrangements? Esteemed Teacher, please give us some guidance on
this.

Teacher: It's the same as China in that regard. China is
such a large area, and the dialects of many regions are unintelligible to people
in other regions. But everybody speaks Mandarin, the national language, and so
people can understand each other. In India it's actually the same. India too has
an official language, and many Indians speak English. The British were there for
quite a long time, so a lot of older people speak English. India has a large
population and a sizeable land mass, so there are bound to be differences in
language. I don't think that is stopping them from obtaining the Fa. For sure
it's the old forces stopping them. The Dafa disciples in China were able to
resolve this issue, and the ones in India can, too.

The people of India have changed a lot since taking up other
religions and an assortment of beliefs. In the past, Indians were a people of
primal simplicity; the Indian race was created by a Buddha.

The human beings on earth were created by different gods.
It's as if the feet of some gods in the cosmos were planted here, the Three
Realms--there are Buddhas' feet, Daos' feet, and feet of all kinds of Gods. At
the bottoms of their feet--the particles at the lowest level--are the Three
Realms and the Earth, on which are the different people of this world, with
different people corresponding to different gods' systems. Shakyamuni often said
that the feet were dirty. In fact what he meant was that this human place is at
a low level. In other words, once a god created a person, the person became part
of that god's system, and that is why gods looked after people. But later on,
because Fa-rectification began, the gods that created man abandoned the Three
Realms and mankind; the gods who created man all separated from the Three
Realms, so man became isolated. This surface human form, also called the human
skin, still assumes the images of different ethnic groups, but it no longer has
any ties with the gods above. In other words, it no longer has ties with the
gods who created man before. Didn't the gods from high levels in the cosmos come
down one after another, taking on a human form to obtain the Fa? Put another
way, most human bodies today are being used by beings who descended from higher
realms to become human beings here. This clothing is being donned by beings that
came from higher realms. Once they arrive at this human place you can't call
them gods anymore, because in the past beings that came down to this human place
could never return; once someone arrived at this realm he became a being of this
realm. So in other words, he became human, with the only difference being that
he came from high levels. Well, at this point in the discussion, what I am
saying is that the former gods who can't be saved when my Great Law is widely
spread will, provided they are not so bad they must be weeded out, forever be
human beings here. And we are talking about those who have not sinned against
Dafa and are not overly bad. They will be human beings in the next period, when
the future mankind truly begins.

The mankind of today was not meant to be an everlasting level
in the cosmos. The Three Realms was created for the Fa-rectification, and no
matter how long its history is, the beings here are meant for the purpose of Fa-rectification
and existing alongside the Fa-rectification. Gods directed mankind by shaping
its cultures, behavior, and ways of thinking, as well as its biological makeup.
That process was a part of history that was meant to facilitate the Fa-rectification,
it took place for the Fa-rectification, and it was for Fa-rectification that the
different dynasties of man constantly changed. In other words, human beings are
in fact not truly beings that belong to this level of the cosmos. This level of
beings that are humans and this society were created with a purpose. If during
this Fa-rectification human beings act well, mankind will be blessed. Because
the Great Law is spread here, the true history of this level of
beings--humans--will really commence in the future, and the Great Law will
establish the lives of human beings for this future level. Put another way, in
the future man will really exist, and this level will become forever a part of
the cosmos's composition, this level will forever be a level of the cosmos. (Applause)
So in the future the people who do not sin against Dafa but do not cultivate in
Dafa will forever be human beings here.

Today's human world is scary indeed, and no one dared to come
here before. Once they got here they would have entered the delusion, and with
their minds wiped clean, no matter how high a level a god was from, he wouldn't
know anything once he got here. After getting immersed in the reversed
principles in this world, and driven by the human self-interest and qing
of this world, people are capable of doing anything. All a being can do here is
go down the road to ruin, and it's hard for him to extricate himself. At this
human level, qing manifests like water; it is smaller than the particles
of water that people can see and highly dense. It is a god, but it is formless,
and it's called "qing." It is a god that was created when the
Three Realms was created, and it just plays the role it does. Here, any being
that is composed of particles within the Three Realms is submerged. When looked
at from a microcosmic level, the molecules in the human body are large pellets,
and there are gaps between those pellets. So as human beings are submerged here,
and the spaces between the molecules in the human body--and even the spaces
inside the molecules--are immersed in qing, it is as if they are
submerged in water. Who can say he's not affected by qing? If someone can
break out of qing, then that person is divine. (Applause) Your
being happy, your being unhappy, your liking something, your disliking
something, your being angry--any emotional response from you--your liking
certain physical objects, your liking certain work, your wanting to have certain
foods... all of these things are from qing.

The surface body of man--despite the fact that this being
came from high levels--the surface body of the human being is composed from the
different foods in this dimension, but at the same time, the surface that you
see is quite complicated. Human beings have a True Body. (Of course, this Fa
should be taught in the future, as it is Fa that is within the Three Realms.)
The composition of the human body is complex. When a person is born, the
lower-realm gods in charge of human beings' reincarnation have to give that
person a human skin. That human skin is very small at the time; its
manifestation in that dimension is quite small. Starting from when it is an
embryo, the matter from this dimension that its parents give it--what people
call "nutrition"--continually makes it fill out and get bigger. This
process of filling it out and making it bigger is the process of growth. It
fills out and enlarges because it is continually substantiated by this
dimension's matter, which continually fills out and enlarges the true skin. The
same is true with the process of a person's growth after birth: whatever human
food you eat, your body will grow, and that growth is in fact your true skin
being filled out and enlarged by cells formed as a result of the food you
consume after birth. Then when a person dies, usually his true skin is extracted
and taken away. It is more microcosmic than the matter at the outermost surface,
so gods can take it away effortlessly. As soon as the true skin is taken away,
the body at the surface starts to break down and rot. Since it was composed of
matter of the earth in this dimension, it needs to return to the earth, so it
has to rot here.

I'm talking about the Fa in the Three Realms. (Master
smiles) (Audience chuckles, applauds) Your human surface likes to
hear it, but it serves no purpose in high-level cultivation. In other words, as
I said a little earlier, beings that came from upper realms are actually wearing
this set of clothes now--the human skin that is, this human body at the surface.
Since human beings' surface appearances were created by gods before, in the past
they were always connected to those gods, so they basically had those gods'
images. They were identical for the most part, with only minor differences. Each
person might have his own appearance, but overall he has that god's basic image.
So different gods created different human beings. But, due to the Fa-rectification
period starting, they all abandoned mankind. Some people say they are of
such-and-such ethnicity, but in the eyes of gods they actually don't belong to
any ethnicity. It's just that their bodies at the surface still have the
appearance of that ethnicity; the true them is not part of it. They might very
well have reincarnated from other ethnic groups, and many beings came from the
heavens.

When gods created man they did not do so in the heavens, they
did it on earth. That is, they used the matter on earth to create man.
Apparently it was said in the Old Testament that Yahweh created man of
clay. In fact, molecules are one kind of particle that are at the surface of the
lowest level of the cosmos. Put differently, in gods' eyes this layer of
particles is the earth, the clay. [They see it that way] because their matter is
the best matter in the cosmos, and the further down you go in the cosmos, the
lower things are and the larger and coarser the particles get, which means the
worse things are, and in their eyes the filthier things are. So heaven and earth
in their eyes are different from how human beings perceive them. When people say
that someone has gone to the heavens, he has in fact only gone higher and
traveled further among the molecules. He still hasn't left this dimension of
molecules, so he is not really in the heavens. The heavens that gods refer to
are composed of microcosmic particles--those are the real heavens.

Scientists ask, "Where can you find the gods? We've seen
the heavens with our telescopes--where are the gods?" That's not the true
heavens, but just the heavens as humans think of them. It's not the true
"heavens" spoken of by the beings in the cosmos. And "Earth"
as we know it doesn't fully encompass the true idea of earth. Human beings look
at Earth and think, "Oh, this earth, it is our earth. We are standing on
the earth. The earth is round." Gods say that it isn't round. [People might
think,] "How is it not round? We can see it more clearly than the
gods." But think about it, gods think of molecules as dirt on the ground,
and isn't this dimension's matter made up of molecules? Isn't the air, which our
human eyes can't see, made up of molecules? And in the air there are substances
just like the air, numbering in the hundreds of millions, that are distributed
all throughout the Three Realms. It's just that eyes cannot see molecules and
the smaller particles, though everything in this dimension is packed full of
them. Mankind is buried in the piles of molecules and smaller particles. The
surface forms in the human world are different forms made up of surface matter
composed of molecules. Some of the forms were made by gods, some by man. The
ones made by man are things such as this building. The ones made by gods are:
water, rocks, soil, the air, metals, plants, animals, and human beings, as well
as the stars in the sky and the earth. Human beings are merely perceiving the
world from within the dimension made up of this layer of particles, and
perceiving the cosmos from inside this very narrow dimension. The heaven and
earth that are in human beings' minds are not the true heaven and earth. Earth,
like the air, is composed of molecules, so in gods' eyes, all of it is earth.
[Looking at it from] the microcosmic level, the dimension made up of this level
of particles is in fact earth, whereas the realm made up of more microcosmic
particles is the true heavens.

A moment ago I said that Indians were created by a Buddha.
The way they talk and carry themselves is very much like a Buddha. In the past
the resemblance was even stronger. In modern society things have gotten a bit
jumbled due to issues with race. The Arabs and the Chinese are close to India,
so a large portion of the Indians of recent times are of mixed race. In the past
the Indian race was very pure. You can see what I described in Indian ethnic
dance. Their hand gestures and movements closely resemble the mudras and
postures of a Buddha. I find them very, very similar. (Applause)

Disciple: In Russia there have recently been several
incidents of terrorist attacks on tourists, so a lot of people don't want to
hear about the terrorist-style persecution happening in Mainland China.

Teacher: That, too, is a form of interference. It doesn't
matter--clarify the truth as you would normally. [The evil] is intent on trying
to interfere with you. Don't let it interfere with you, though, and just go on
doing what you would normally do. It's hard for the time being, but it won't be
hard for long.

Disciple: With regard to the correction of the Chinese
characters, is it to be done only with Dafa books? Since media work...

Teacher: When it comes to the articles you write for
ordinary people, don't change the characters in them. If ordinary people
couldn't understand them, that would be a problem, right? Let's not involve
these things in ordinary affairs at present.

Disciple: I have bad thought-karma. I have refused to
acknowledge it all along and I have been trying to get rid of it. But it's been
a long time and I still haven't managed to get rid of it. I am able to tell that
it is not me.

Teacher: If it's something truly bad, then eliminate it.
And sometimes there is another approach that has good results, and it's not
necessarily an extreme way to handle it. You can have this thought: "During
the Fa-rectification of the cosmos, I can make a reasonable arrangement for
those of you who don't interfere with my validating the Fa; I can have you
become beings in the future. Those of you who seek a benevolent resolution
should leave me and wait in my surroundings. If you really cannot leave me, then
don't have any part in interfering with me. In the future I will be able to
achieve Consummation, and I will offer you a benevolent resolution. Those who
are completely bad, who still interfere with me and who cannot remain will,
according to the standards, have to be eliminated. Even if I don't eliminate
you, the Law of the cosmos won't let you remain." If you have that thought,
it is tremendously merciful to some of those extremely low-level beings, and it
will make it easy to eliminate those who still interfere.

The Fa-rectification of the cosmos has standards. If you do
it that way no one will have any grounds to challenge you. The principles are
clear, as those who are supposed to be eliminated are to be eliminated. And yes,
when it comes to many low-level things you may eliminate them
completely--there's no problem with that in terms of the principles. But when
you handle it as I just described, no being can say anything in objection. Those
who continue to do bad things will have no justification whatsoever, and
whatever is supposed to be done will be done. (Applause)

Disciple: In translating your teaching of the Fa, some
students think that it should be done word for word according to the original
text, and some think the translation should conform to the conventions of the
foreign language.

Teacher: I think that translating word for word, except
in the cases of some Asian languages where it might work, may not be so easy to
do; that's especially so with Western languages. It's fine just to translate the
most surface ideas using words of similar meaning. Making the translation
consistent with the original meaning as much as possible is pretty much good
enough. These questions come up a lot with translation. The translation should
be very close to the surface meaning, and that will be fine.

Another thing is, some people have felt it's better to make
the translations more like spoken language. Take English, for example. One book
was translated in a fully oral style. Some people say that kind of translation
is easier for people to understand. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing
that, but I think in fact it's best to do it both using standard structure and
diction as well as making the translation consistent with the original meaning
as much as possible. Scholars of English and of language might not be able to
accept vernacular that's too specific to any one region. If you use standard
structure and diction, then everyone can study it and everyone can read it.
Don't worry that people might not be able to understand it. Don't we already
have so many English-speaking students? Didn't they all understand it? It's not
a problem.

You are holding a Fa conference, but I'm taking up all the
time--that's not good, right? (Applause signifying that it is all right)
There are a lot of greetings.

Teacher: Thank you all. (Applause) Since there are
a lot of question slips, if I read all of them, I'll be doing all the talking at
today's Fa conference. (Applause signifying that they would like Teacher to
continue) I'll read as many as I can. (Applause)

Disciple: We would like to establish a charitable foundation
for Dafa disciples' orphaned children. Would Master please give us some advice
on that?

Teacher: That would be a good thing, and you may do that.
I've been thinking about this all along. After some Dafa disciples were killed
by the persecution, their children became homeless and they have been staying in
foster homes. I can't do nothing about it, so I thought that we could collect
their names and then figure out a way to rescue them out of China. (Applause)
We'll raise them, and we can set up a school(s) for them. (Applause)

Disciple: The question I'm running into is: how do I know
which project is more important and more of a focus for me to do well in?

Disciple: A student suffered from psychosis a few years ago
and had to stay in the hospital, but in the last few years he has not had a
problem. Right now he is taking part in Fa-validating work. Should we advise him
to appear in public as little as possible, keep a low profile, and do
behind-the-scenes type work?

Teacher: That's a good suggestion. If some students can't
handle themselves well or suffered from psychosis before learning the Fa, then
it's okay for them to cultivate at home. Back when I was imparting the Fa, I
always said that those who had psychosis were not allowed in the seminars. When
[those] people took up the practice, I would take care of them, and if they
studied at home, I would save them just the same. But they were not allowed in
the seminars. We needed to protect that cultivation environment of Dafa
disciples and prevent interference, and that is why I didn't allow critically
ill patients or those who had psychosis to attend the seminars. Students who
used to have psychosis can do some things that are in the background, and it's
okay if they do less or nothing when it comes to clarifying the truth.

Disciple: Dafa requires students not to sit by, watch, and
ignore things like murder and arson. In Mainland China students are losing their
lives right now. I really cannot just sit idly by and wait at home. I want to go
to Tiananmen Square to tell people "Falun Dafa is great" and that Dafa
saved my life.

Teacher: It's still quite evil over there right now.
While you cannot sit by and watch Mainland China's students being persecuted, I
don't want you to be persecuted, either. Work harder on clarifying the truth to
stop the persecution. As your Master, I need to first consider your safety. (Applause)

Disciple: When we create art, how should we balance and
handle appropriately creating art that today's people can accept and art people
should have in the future? Are we establishing new art?

Teacher: You should do your best to make the cultural
performance shows put together by Dafa disciples more upright and better. What a
work of art depicts is only an issue of its subject matter, whereas the artistry
and quality of the created work is often the key that determines whether the
audience will be receptive to it.

Disciple: I am prone to sinking into a despondent mood. I
think the most painful thing in my life is loneliness, as I don't have the
warmth of family. I find it hard to get rid of the cloud cast over me by the
feeling of loneliness. How should I look at this problem? Is it caused by karma
from my past, or is it certain factors that I need to get rid of in my
cultivation?

Teacher: If it's karma or interference, then eliminate
it. As a living being, why do you no longer have the excitement you had when you
initially obtained Dafa, pride in having obtained this Dafa, and the feeling
that you have something that others cannot get? Are you not diligent anymore? Is
that it? Or, even if you were too busy clarifying the truth to mull over your
feelings, that would be because you were doing Dafa things or working on saving
sentient beings. Why do you feel lonely? If you go do things to save sentient
beings and things that a Dafa disciple is supposed to do, you definitely won't
feel that way. If you were studying the Fa and diligently cultivating, could you
feel that way? Only when you are not diligent will you have the leisure to mull
over those ordinary human feelings, right? (Applause)

Disciple: A fellow cultivator has been giving me financial
support recently, which has enabled me to stay in New York to do more Dafa work.
I don't think it is quite right to accept others' help. Master, is my
understanding correct?

Teacher: Yes, I think that since all Dafa disciples are
giving of themselves and you too are giving of yourself and clarifying the
truth, if you rely on other people's financial contributions, then aren't you
doing things conditionally? If others didn't provide for you, then would you not
do it? When we take from others, don't we have a sense of indebtedness? Do we
feel right about it? Sure, there are special circumstances, and we can't be
absolute with this. It's understandable when students who have their own
businesses give more and support certain projects by students. But under normal
circumstances I don't think that seems right. Even when it's for doing things
like clarifying the truth, I don't think it is quite right. If you can stay here
long term, then find a job and do [the Dafa] things in your spare time--that
works, too. In any case, ultimately you have to resolve your financial situation
on your own. You can't depend on someone else to provide for you--that would be
a problem.

I'm talking about this in terms of the Fa's principles. In
fact, the observing gods are glaring at you, so you shouldn't be borrowing from
people. If circumstances really don't allow, then do other Dafa-disciple things
at home. What I said was that those whose circumstances allow could stay here to
clarify the truth. If your circumstances don't allow, then go back to your
hometown and do truth-clarification things there, which is the same.

Disciple: Could you please talk about certain members of that
despicable Jiang's overseas clique poisoning the Chinese people's minds outside
of China?

Teacher: Those things aren't worth discussing at our Fa
conference. A being is responsible for the consequences of whatever path he
takes. The path those people took was their own choice. Even when, with your
help, they come to realize things, they still have to pay back what they owe. A
person has to pay for whatever he has done. It's absolutely not allowed if he
does not. Think about how many people they have harmed with their spreading of
the venom, though. That sin is as large as the mountains and the skies, so they
can't pay it off, for they have poisoned the minds of too many beings. So if a
media outlet does bad things, its sin is huge; what I'm referring to is when it
harms Dafa.

Disciple: How can disciples in Poland help the disciples in
Mainland China? Greetings to esteemed Teacher from Dafa disciples in Poland!

Teacher: Thank you! (Applause) With regard to Dafa
disciples in Poland, I think that no matter where you are, you can clarify the
truth, and if you have the time you can do it in other regions as well. All of
that is fine, and it helps the students in Mainland China. Right now the
students outside Mainland China have created a better situation [in China] to
some extent and effectively restrained the evil [there]. And also, they are
helping the students there realize that they should step forward and the
importance of doing so. There are all sorts of things like these that you can
do, and if you have other ideas, that's okay, too.

As far as sending money to them, though, don't do that. The
money might not reach them, and they, too, are cultivating. If the money got to
be a lot, their human thoughts might arise and in turn actually lead to
attachments. They are in an evil environment, and it is indeed tough in some
regions. But as long as they handle themselves well, Master will take care of
all of them. They need to walk their own paths. Master takes everything into
consideration; these things are not fundamental problems.

Disciple: When some students obtained the Fa they didn't
truly understand things from the Fa and were not strict with themselves. As a
result, their detrimental behavior affected the newer students around them and
caused those students to lose their desire to cultivate. Can those people be
saved? And can the students who affected them make up for the harm they did?

Teacher: Whenever a student makes it so that others
cannot be saved, it's a very serious matter. As a cultivator, you can only save
sentient beings, you can't ruin them. In the human world you are capable of
cultivating into a god, and in the human world you are capable of ruining
others. These are things of equal magnitude, so you cannot overlook the
importance of this. As far as what you owed before you started cultivating,
those things have been segregated, and they are a separate matter. Then what you
do during cultivation is simply huge. If you really cause someone to be ruined,
unsalvageable, or even unable to make it to the future, then that will prevent
you from ever becoming a god. It's that serious. So be very, very sure you don't
do anything like that.

Of course, things done intentionally and unintentionally can
be looked at differently, but didn't we come here for sentient beings? When your
negative impact causes serious harm, what happened to your righteous thoughts to
save sentient beings? How could you not consider how others might feel? Aren't
you cultivating to become a righteous enlightened being of a righteous Fa, a
being who puts others' interests before his own and considers others first? When
you have conflicts with others it affects newer students, so why did you do that
in front of the newer students? Weren't you being self-centered and not thinking
of others? Sure, maybe it was unintentional, but didn't it effectively drive
newer students away?

You ought to be more mindful when it comes to a lot of
things, and you should make up for what you didn't handle well before. Don't
just think, "That's a new student, he came in because we spread the Fa, and
if he doesn't want to practice he can leave." Don't look at it that way.
You know, your efforts to spread the Fa merely provide the circumstances,
whereas whether he is accepted is up to Master. It's Master who truly brought
him in, so if you drive him away it's no trivial thing. Besides, once someone
has learned Dafa, he is a Dafa student, and many things are to be done
for him. When many things are done for him and yet he stops practicing, then do
you have any idea of the consequences ahead?

Disciple: If the old forces' persecution hadn't happened,
what would the cultivation path(s) you originally arranged for us have been
like?

Teacher: Things have transpired and the situation
changed, so why ask about that?

Disciple: With our righteous thoughts and righteous actions,
will we be able to end the persecution before the Fa rectifies the human world?

Teacher: The truth is, Dafa disciples, in supporting the
Fa-rectification, your righteous thoughts and righteous actions have already
made the persecution draw closer to the end. (Applause) Think about it,
the evil beings have let up quite a bit now. If you weren't strong, if you
hadn't done well, why would they have let up on you? When some students do fall
into their hands, the wicked people don't dare to persecute them too badly
anymore. Why not? Isn't it because they are afraid that Dafa disciples will
bring them to justice later on? Isn't it because no matter where those evil ones
who have persecuted Dafa disciples try to escape to, they will eventually be
tracked down? If during this persecution Dafa disciples had all been beaten into
silence and had feebly vanished, then would the evil be afraid? They wouldn't
think twice [about doing evil]. The things you are doing can shock and frighten
the evil today, can greatly reduce the evil and restrain it, can terrify the
evil and prevent it from having the strength to carry on with the persecution,
and can ultimately force this evil persecution to do nothing but end. That's
what Dafa disciples are doing in this time before the Fa rectifies the human
world, and it is magnificent.

Disciple: Some students don't participate in group study or
exercises. Are those students at risk? How can we help them get rid of their
fear?

Teacher: I think that with newer students, you shouldn't
be too hasty. It's all right for them to take their time. But you should try
your best to advise them to take part in group study sessions, because the group
study environment is indispensable for your helping each other improve, it is
essential. Why, back early on, did I ask people to hold them? Because the form
of cultivation that this Fa takes dictates that it be done this way. Why did the
people in the past have to leave the secular world to cultivate? They knew there
was a problem: when they were back in the secular world and interacted with
ordinary people, they became like ordinary people and couldn't stay diligent.
Moreover, they cultivated their subordinate souls. That is why they left the
secular world and grouped themselves together. The cultivators could help each
other improve and see how they compared with others, they always had things to
share that were specific to cultivators, and they formed a cultivators'
environment.

Without that environment, then... think about it, it's the
same with today's Dafa disciples: when you go back out there into ordinary
society, you are in the environment of ordinary society. If you don't seize the
day [to cultivate], then today you might feel like reading and so you read a
little, but tomorrow you might get lazy and read less... so without that
environment it's hard to stay diligent. After all, it's human beings who are
cultivating. So with human laziness and all kinds of disturbances affecting
people in this world, it's very hard for you to see on your own where you fall
short. And in particular, if on top of that you aren't diligent, you don't read
the book a lot, or you don't comprehend the Fa very well, you won't be able to
see your attachments at all. That's why you have to participate in group study
and exercises.

Right now we are at a time when the persecution is taking
place, so there are all kinds of reasons why students can't, or can't
frequently, do the exercises as a group. In the future you will definitely have
group exercises. Outside Mainland China many veteran students are busy doing a
lot of things to validate the Fa. But, for the sake of newer students, veteran
students should create an environment for them so that they can study the Fa and
do the exercises together.

Disciple: (Translated question) I'm a Western student.
Esteemed Teacher, would you please say something to encourage more Western
students to step forward? A lot of Dafa projects need English-speaking students
right now.

Teacher: It's true that they should be diligent. I've
been thinking that The[Chinese]Epoch Times, a newspaper
run by Dafa disciples, has had a fairly big impact in the Chinese community. In
fact, The Epoch Times newspaper is already the largest media outlet in
the world; it covers many countries, including the entire United States. I've
seen it even in small towns in the U.S. It covers a very large area, and on top
of that there is the web version. But, that said, it reaches only Chinese
people. Beyond Mainland China, the true mainstream society, the principal part
of society... for instance, the U.S. is an English-speaking society, and that
language is what most of the people speak. So how could we not have a
publication that clarifies the truth to them? There are limitations to solely
relying on clarifying the truth by word of mouth. And even if that were
feasible, we should still try as much as we can to add on some other ways to
better help people see the truth. Wouldn't that be better? So I've been thinking
that whenever the English version of The Epoch Times that you are running
can truly get off the ground, that will be the greatest thing. And actually, the
same goes for other countries. (Applause)

Many of the media outlets in mainstream society have business
relationships with China, and some of the managers and editors have even been
bought off by China's wicked band of gangsters. In this day and age, such a
severe persecution is taking place--such a significant thing--yet the
international community turns a blind eye to it. Isn't that odd? Is that
acceptable? It's a crime! That band of gangsters is just so evil. If Dafa
disciples have a local media presence, that might resolve these problems. But if
these media outlets [we are involved in] are going to achieve a good effect,
they need to resolve the challenges of human and material resources, which means
that they need to increase their staff. So from this perspective, the number of
Western students who are currently involved is indeed not meeting the need. The
students involved are worried about this, too.

Of course, everything will gradually get better. There will
be new students who will get involved; there will be new students who will
understand the Fa over time and get involved. Everything will get better. The
situation with the Chinese-language newspaper was like this before, too. They
went from being shorthanded to having more people, from not knowing what to do
to knowing, from not being familiar with it to being familiar, from being
immature to eventually becoming mature. So I think that when it comes to new
students who can cultivate themselves according to the Fa, you can have them get
involved in more things. But, if they can't understand things from the Fa yet,
then you really can't get them involved, because they won't understand a lot of
things and they don't realize yet that we are the ones who have to do things to
validate the Fa. It is another way to save sentient beings, so if we don't do
it, who will?

When a new student doesn't understand, it might even
negatively affect him or ruin him. So you should consider that aspect of things.
Let them know that the things we are doing save sentient beings, clarify the
facts, and expose the persecution. I think that each veteran student was a new
student once, too. Gradually these new students will, likewise, become mature.

Disciple: When I've gone through ordeals or tests, every time
I have found filthy attachments that come from selfishness. I've cultivated for
so long now but I still haven't removed it completely, while the Fa-rectification
is drawing to a close...

Teacher: Don't be anxious about that. Removing those
things is done layer by layer, and that's why they surface. When it comes to
certain things, if you really can't do them, Master will do them for you.

Ordinary society is just one big dye vat, and the moment you
let down your guard you get corroded by it. So you must cultivate nonstop and
resist the contamination. As soon as you let up it will come for you. You are
cultivators, and Master has let you keep the things that allow you to cultivate
among ordinary people. That's one of the reasons [behind what you
described]--it's so that you can conform as much as possible to the way of
ordinary society in your cultivation. When you aren't diligent, though, those
human things of yours will be exploited. But as cultivators you are able to
continually rectify yourself and continually get rid of bad things through your
cultivation. However, you might still have some left. Don't think that you have
failed to cultivate well, though, and even less should you let it become a
burden. Then it would become an attachment. When there are [bad things], just
remove them. Cultivate in a noble and confident manner, and don't let those
things affect your actions. When they show up in your thoughts eliminate them in
a timely manner.

Disciple: As the time of Fa-rectification rapidly moves
forward, [I am concerned that] it's still really difficult to clarify the truth
to my family. I find it hard to figure out how to go about clarifying the truth
to them.

Teacher: Some students do find it really difficult to
clarify the truth to their families. I think for the most part it's actually
because you still see them as people in your family and treat them differently
from people in the outside world. You should remember that they, too, are
sentient beings in the human world, instead of thinking of them first as your
family. And you should find out what in their minds is unresolved. Once you work
those things out everything can be resolved. Under normal circumstances when you
clarify the truth, don't think about having people learn the Fa right away and
the results will be better.

Disciple: Although I realize that we are all very fortunate,
sometimes I get unhappy. Would you please tell me, does that happen because of
the side of me that hasn't been fully cultivated, or is it a result of
karma-elimination, that is, karma?

Teacher: Actually, it's normal to get unhappy. Newer
students have formed many notions in the human world, and their notions perceive
things differently. You might find one thing good, some other bad, and so
on--people have feelings like that. Those are human notions reacting. Your
notions can't be removed all at once as soon as you start cultivating, so
reactions based on notions will affect your emotions, putting you in a bad or
happy mood.

These are things that happen in your cultivation. Gradually
your understanding of the Fa will become clearer and clearer, your righteous
thoughts will get stronger and stronger, you will look upon sentient beings with
more and more compassion and mercy, and things will be different.

Disciple: Now that the new Zhuan Falun has come out, what
should we do with the ones that have uncorrected [Chinese] characters in them,
that is, the old Zhuan Falun? Should we continue to use them?

Teacher: It is the Book, it is the Fa, and for just a few
words... can't you just correct the characters? Am I right? You can't go and do
something you shouldn't, right?

Disciple: The five-thousand-year-old Chinese culture is [a
combination of] the cultures of different cosmic bodies in the cosmos. Then are
Western cultures also cultures of cosmic bodies from ages ago? Are they related
to the spreading of Dafa?

Teacher: Western gods created Westerners. Whether it be
Asians or other ethnicities, they were all created by different gods, so they
definitely bear the characteristics of those systems. As for culture, you should
say that gods created human beings' cultures for them, instead of saying that
those cultures are cultures of the heavens. If you say that the skyscrapers in
Manhattan are the same as those in the heavens, that's not true, because they
were brought about by modern science, and modern science was brought about by
aliens. Yes, the cultures of China's different dynasties bore characteristics of
the heavenly kingdoms that came to form karmic connections. But, gods determined
what was left behind at this human place with specific goals in mind, since
human history was laying the foundation for Fa-rectification. Western culture is
a surface culture that was created for human beings while they lived and waited
for the Fa-rectification.

Disciple: I find it very hard to return to Zhen-Shan-Ren.
Master, could you please tell me what it means to truly remove attachments at a
fundamental level?

Teacher: You're a newer student, so don't be anxious. You
will gradually come to realize and understand many things during your
cultivation process. The best approach is to read the book(s) a lot--you have to
read the book(s) repeatedly. What Master is telling you is absolutely good for
you.

You saw that in just a few years of my imparting the Fa in
Mainland China, 100 million people came to learn it. Since leaving China I
haven't directly taught the exercises or the Fa, and it has been the students
who have been passing it on, holding nine-day seminars, and spreading the word
about this Fa. Although the old forces have been controlling certain things,
they haven't been able to block it, and a lot of people have still come to learn
it. Why is that? Because this Fa can truly guide people's cultivation, it can
truly help people improve, and can truly change the state of a being. The evil
in Mainland China has been carrying out such a severe persecution, and the
evil's pressure felt by Dafa disciples in the international community has been
huge as well. So why have they been able to withstand the evil and come through?
It's because they have come to know this Fa and they have truly improved
themselves through this Fa and through their cultivation. Of course it's
unrealistic to want to reach a very high level of understanding right away. But,
gradually by studying the Fa you will come to know everything.

As far as attachments go, if today Master told you to get rid
of this or that one, it would be something forced, and any desire to get rid of
it wouldn't have come from your heart. And as time went by, when you couldn't
take it anymore after Master had said a lot of those things, you would become
resentful and think, "Why should I do that?" But when you've realized
things from the Fa's principles and have understood the effect that doing that
might have onyour existence, only then have you truly improved, and only
then are you truly able to do it. No external restriction comes out of your own
will or out of true improvement on your part. Restrictions and coercion can
never change someone or make him improve. And once the restrictions are gone,
the person will go back to being how he was before, so that doesn't work.

Disciple: Since the suppression started in 1999, some
students who got out of labor camps have gone to practice Buddhism. The truth
is, they were all afraid.

Teacher: I think that if they are laden with fear, no
matter where they go they won't be truly cultivating, and they won't be able to
reach Consummation. Once they get into Buddhism they will see what it is like.
Compared to the students who have conducted themselves well, they have, of
course, done poorly. They came when Dafa benefited them, but when Dafa was
persecuted they ran away. They reaped the benefits, but while we are resisting
the persecution, they are not speaking up for Dafa and don't want to validate
the Fa. In gods' eyes that kind of being is the worst. As far as what to tell
them in terms of cultivation, all you can do is suggest to them that they do
what's good for them; there's no special method. What a person wants is up to
him.

Disciple: The Middle East has been constantly plagued by war,
and the people there don't have an opportunity to obtain the Fa. Would you
please tell us how Dafa disciples should spread the Fa in that region?

Teacher: It is hard indeed. All of that is the old
forces' doing.

The U.S. government knows that the persecution of Falun Gong
students has been very severe. The United States was founded on freedom of
belief and they advocate for human rights. The first immigrants to the U.S. were
the Puritans, who came to this land for freedom of belief. The persecution of
Dafa disciples directly involves the most fundamental interests of the U.S. and
its founding principles, but why hasn't the U.S. government gotten involved?
Trying to be understanding of their situation, I'd say that it is because the
old forces have been stirring up trouble in the Middle East, which has kept the
U.S. tied up and prevented it from having the energy to focus on China and do
something about the persecution of Dafa disciples.

If it weren't tied up with the issue of terrorists right now,
I believe the U.S. government definitely wouldn't tolerate evil like this being
so rampant in today's world. That's because the U.S.'s role in the world is to
maintain order--it is actually the international police. Why did gods make it so
powerful and rich? The gods wanted it to play that role in the world. China is
the main stage in this play of mankind, it is the place where the main play is
acted out. But someone has to maintain order in the theater--you can't let it
become chaotic, right? So the truth is, the gods really do want the United
States to do that. The CCP always criticizes the U.S. for
being "the international police." Well, it is the international
police, and gods want it to be that. If the U.S. government really doesn't
fulfill that responsibility and doesn't play that role, then the gods won't have
it be so strong or rich. It's not that Americans are supposed to be special but
that gods arranged it that way. (Teacher smiles)

Disciple: Myself and some Dafa disciples around me recently
had babies. It feels like we no longer have as much time to clarify the facts as
we did before, and we're a bit troubled by that.

Teacher: I don't think that's a problem. A lot of Dafa
disciples have children. If the child is very young, it's all right to spend
more time taking care of the child. When you have time you can do work to
clarify the facts, and when you have little time you can do a little bit in a
supporting role, which is fine, too. When the baby gets older and your hands are
freed up, then you can do more, and that's okay.

Disciple: (Translated question) When we hold
anti-torture exhibits, a lot of ordinary people pass by many times in the same
day and have already taken our truth-clarification materials, but some Chinese
fellow cultivators still walk up to them and stuff materials into their hands.

Teacher: Perhaps they were different students and didn't
know that those people had already taken the materials, so they gave them the
same materials again. You should be mindful of things in this regard. As time
goes on, when some people have become familiar with you and have learned the
truth, if you stuff the same material that you gave them before into their
hands, it's actually wasting resources. Don't treat it like ordinary people do
when they distribute materials, where you've done your job when everything has
been given out. You are saving sentient beings. Otherwise what are you here [in
New York] for?

Disciple: The City of Atlanta and the Georgia State Senate
are pushing to have a Chinese consulate established. Is that happening because
our truth-clarification hasn't been powerful enough, or is it due to the old
forces' interference?

Teacher: They can build whatever they want to build, it
doesn't matter. Whether or not they establish a consulate has nothing to do with
us. And who knows whose consulate it will be in the future. (Audience
chuckles) Indeed, we are not concerned with ordinary people's affairs. We're
just cultivators. Look at how China is now. The CCP is really sitting on the
mouth of a volcano this time, teetering on the edge. It looks grandiose and
high-flying on the surface but it's already beyond cure. Its clothes on the
surface are glamorous, but inside it is all rotten.

Disciple: As of now what phase has the Fa-rectification in
New York reached?

Teacher: There are no phases. Just clarify the truth,
help people understand by telling them [the facts], and help the world become
aware of the truth. What you actually want to know is what the overall status is
now. In fact, in the time since you started clarifying the truth like this, a
lot of people who live in New York City have come to understand the truth. More
than half, in fact. They understood things quickly. But those who only work in
New York and don't live here account for only a small portion of them. That's
the state of things.

Disciple: Because of security concerns, there are some things
we want to keep secret. But going too far with this hampers sharing and
communication among students and dampens people's enthusiasm. How can we handle
this better?

Teacher: Cultivators, you know, need to think about
others no matter what it is they are doing, and even more so should they think
about Dafa. So don't be upset when somebody doesn't disclose something to you.
Some projects can't be discussed in big meetings, they can't be known to
everyone. When a larger number of people know about such a project, people let
down their guard. One person talks about it, and another talks about it, and
before you know it those secret agents from China's band of gangsters know about
it, too. Their means of monitoring and eavesdropping on what you do are getting
out of hand. Whether you have your phone turned on or off, they can [use it to]
listen in on you. So for security's sake, a lot of the things you do to save
sentient beings can't be known widely before you do them. You have to be clear
on this point: you need to make allowances for students [when they don't let you
in on things]. They're not trying to hide things from you--they are trying to
keep them low-key. For example, let's say you want to hold an art exhibit to
clarify the truth, and before things start up the consulate makes a phone call
to intimidate the gallery, saying, "If you let them use the gallery, you'd
better watch out: there will be an explosion." No underhanded behavior is
beneath them. So with some things we can't have a lot of people involved. As
Dafa students you have to be understanding of every student.

Disciple: Some students have done a great deal of work and
put forth a lot for Dafa, but while doing the work they often lose their temper.
Can somebody like that cultivate to Consummation?

Teacher: I don't think that would affect something as
major as Consummation. Why would he lose his temper? Of course, if it's just a
matter of getting angry, then we can't conclude that he has cultivated poorly.
But, losing your temper really does have a terrible effect. The impact on newer
students is too much, it's almost enough to scare people away. You are all still
cultivating--it's humans cultivating, after all, not gods--so you will cause
misunderstandings [when you get mad] and cause disruption. You can have
differences of opinion or feel upset all you want, but you still need to talk
things out in a calm way. Don't our Dafa disciples have to not return blows or
insults, even in the face of evil? Don't you have to forbear? To patiently
clarify the truth? Then when you lose your temper, what was that for? What is
there for a cultivator to get angry about? And shouldn't there be even less of
that when you are with other cultivators? No matter who you are, you are
cultivating. How come you always get mad at my disciples? Did I agree to your
acting like that towards my disciples?

Disciple: Because of my strong attachments, at the time of a
Fa conference I snapped a few pictures of Master in haste and they didn't turn
out so well. I've come to realize that doing that was disrespectful of Master.

Teacher: Well, that's the reason I tell you not to take
pictures. The second some students spot me, "click-click-click," they
start snapping pictures. I'm not so worried about it, and it doesn't matter to
me personally if the images don't turn out well. But after you take the pictures
you won't feel so good about it. Just bear that in mind from now on. In cases
like I just described, when it's tough to handle, just give all the photos to me
and I'll deal with them.

Disciple: (Teacher: This one has a lot of words on
it.) Differences come across in the way Chinese and Westerners distribute
truth-clarification materials. For example, our Western students invariably hold
the leaflets in their hands and quietly stand aside, waiting for people to take
them. But very few people take the initiative to come over and get them.
Meanwhile, [with Chinese students,] especially those from Taiwan, they always
hand them out politely and enthusiastically, and usually they manage to give out
a lot of them. But they often get asked not to do this by the Western students,
especially when we are clarifying the truth at anti-torture exhibits. For many
reasons, our hope is that Western students can be more proactive in clarifying
the truth and not feel like they have to wait for people [to come to them].

Teacher: My sense is that our Western students do have
that view for sure, which is to say, they feel that since we're cultivating
Zhen, Shan, Ren, we should be polite and show people a Dafa disciple's Shan.
That's surely what they are thinking, so they don't directly approach people and
prefer to wait for them to come take leaflets on their own. I don't think there
is anything wrong with that view, but that said, saving people is a really
urgent matter. Dafa disciples have given up the comforts of home, sacrificed
their careers, and overcome all kinds of challenges, and on top of that their
finances are tight. So coming here to clarify the truth and save people really
hasn't been easy for them. So, since this is about saving people, it's good to
be a little more proactive. But you do have to be polite.

Be both a little more polite and a little more proactive.
That way people won't be put off and we'll be able to give them materials,
too--I think that would be better. If you wait for people to come take them,
while it's possible your thoughts are on saving those people and you are telling
them [in your mind] to come take it, when people's human side gets strong, the
knowing side won't be able to come into play. The people in Manhattan, for
example, are all really busy. Their minds might be occupied with thoughts of
making money, going to meet someone, or closing some kind of deal, and so they
hurriedly walk by. So while they are thinking about something, that thought you
send out could make their knowing sides want to come over and take your
materials, but their human sides are still strong, and so they might miss the
opportunity. So, what I'm thinking is, it would be great if we could greet them
politely and be a little more proactive.

I know that this approach is hard for our Western students.
They always feel bad about bothering people, about actively bothering them. But
that's not how it is. What you should keep in mind is that you are savingpeople,
and things will go fine. (Applause)

Disciple: When clarifying the truth in Manhattan to the
employees in the skyscrapers, we still encounter a lot of obstacles. How can we
do better in breaking through the layers upon layers of obstacles and check
points that the old forces set up, and thus bring the sentient beings in those
buildings salvation? Would Master please...

Teacher: Yes, in fact when we go to those buildings to
clarify the truth, it really is hard to get in, since everybody there is
working. While everyone is working, if we go there to clarify the truth, their
bosses will be upset for sure, and then they will think badly of us. Of course,
that's not to say it is always that way. When circumstances permit we can do it.
As for the employees in those companies, there are usually three times of day
when you can come into contact with them. One is when they go to work, another
is when they get off from work, and the last is when they eat lunch. Most of
them come down for lunch. So at those three times we can opt to make an effort
to reach them, and perhaps the results will be better.

Disciple: I'm a Dafa disciple from Beijing. Before departing
[for the U.S.], my fellow cultivators told me to be sure to pass their regards
on to Master. (Teacher: Thank you. My thanks to the Beijing
students.)(Applause) Though they all do sense that Master is
constantly by their side, they can't help but miss Master greatly--tears well up
at the mere mention of Master's name. These past two days I have joined in with
the activities put on by the overseas Dafa disciples, and found it deeply
moving. Though we [in Beijing] are in the evil's other hub, some fellow
cultivators have gotten into a mode where they're following a mechanical routine
since the persecution has gone on for a long time. It's not like the overseas
Dafa disciples, who are so diligent and maintain a sense of urgency. Here one
truly feels that the pace of things is so swift and each Dafa disciple is so
hard working. I can sense the difference between us and the overseas Dafa
disciples. I will definitely bring back and share with fellow cultivators in
China what I've experienced in Manhattan firsthand and the magnificence of the
New York Fa conference. We really need to pick up the pace and be ever diligent.
May Master put his mind at ease: we will achieve this, we definitely will.

Teacher: I believe you. (Applause) Actually the
evil over in Mainland China has been given quite a scare by the Dafa disciples
there and around the world doing things as you described and making such
efforts. This has done a great deal to restrain the persecution, and massive
amounts of evil have been destroyed along the way. So when the situation is such
as this, if we still have students not stepping forward and not doing things
because of the fear in their hearts, then they really are losing their
opportunity. Some people say, "We know Master is good and we know Dafa is
good. We're studying [the Fa] at home and clandestinely doing the exercises
there." But the fact is that Dafa has been imparted to you, and it was
given so that you could save all beings, it's for you to establish even greater
mighty virtue and be responsible to all beings. Haven't I said this before:
lives of the future do things for others' sake, not for their own? This process
is exactly one in which such qualities are forged in you, so you can't think
about only yourself. What is it that you fear? Just about everything, it seems.
Yes, when there is such cruel persecution going on, I don't want to see students
suffering persecution, either. But the current situation is gradually changing,
and that means we should do even better. In fact, with the students who have
done very well all along, didn't they have to make it through the severe, cruel
persecution?

So my hope is that the students in Mainland China can really
learn from and emulate the students outside of China. In order to lessen the
evil's persecution of you, take a look at what they're doing. They have worked
so hard. Some barely sleep day after day, each person is doing many things, and
they are all shouldering a lot of projects. And I'm not talking about just a few
of them--it's the majority of them, and they really are working hard. So with
this, when we compare things, even though their environment is relaxed and
comfortable, as Dafa disciples, it's still about being diligent. If under very
harsh circumstances you failed to do things or failed to do them well, maybe it
was indeed the product of circumstances. But now things have changed and you
should step forward and do well.

Before, when so much evil was pressed down here, the Three
Realms was saturated with it, and it filled the air. Take a breath and it would
get sucked into your belly--that's how much there was. Evil was everywhere, and
each and every little thing was dominated by that evil. The grass would trip you
up, and tree branches would whip you in the face. When you walked beside a wall
it would hit you in the head. It all seemed natural to you, but it wasn't--that
was how evil it was. Now that evil has been cleaned out and our surroundings are
getting ever more relaxed and easy. In many areas the evil flees at the sight of
Dafa disciples. It doesn't dare in the least to visit those areas, for the Dafa
disciples there have done well. Then with so many Dafa disciples here in
Manhattan, why would the evil dare to come here? It's because the old-force
elements are--as if sweeping up trash--driving the evil over here, sweeping it
here, and gathering it here, so that Dafa disciples and the multitude of gods
can eliminate it. Otherwise the evil absolutely wouldn't dare to come here right
now.

Now when we look at Mainland China, with the environment how
it is at present, if some students still can't step forward, then they are about
to truly lose their chance. Of course, many students have done a great job
there, and they have been doing things all along. That is really magnificent.

Disciple: People have different understandings on sending
righteous thoughts at the consulate. Some people believe that if we send
righteous thoughts after each exercise, the evil won't even have a chance to
catch its breath. Is that thinking going against Shan?

Teacher: The evil that persecutes Dafa disciples simply
has to be cleaned out. As for the specifics of things, I'll leave them to you to
work out.

Disciple further asks: Some people are of the understanding
that to do it that way [that I described] is using human thinking. Sending
righteous thoughts is something solemn, and the Fa's principles dictate that
things are gained only when we are free of pursuit, that we should let nature
take its course. Only when we send righteous thoughts after doing the standing
exercises and again after the sitting exercise will it not impact our own
cultivation. Could you tell us if there's any problem with breaking up an
exercise and doing it over the course of a few hours?

Teacher: Don't develop an attachment. Follow the
requirements that have been set forth when you do the exercises. As for sending
righteous thoughts, you can, except for when it's done collectively, do it at
any time you choose. My thinking is that doing the exercises is doing the
exercises, so just do them normally. As far as sending righteous thoughts goes,
you can do it any time, any place. So long as you haven't worn yourself out, you
can send them forth, and it should be fine. All of what you expend will quickly
be replenished. Doing the exercises just to do the exercises isn't the
point--the exercises strengthen your mechanisms, and it is the automatic
mechanisms that really elevate you and replenish your energy. Twenty-four hours
a day you are being refined by the gong and by the Fa, so no matter how
much energy you emit forth when you send righteous thoughts, none of it is lost.
And as for your supernormal abilities, they will return on their own. Other
things that are depleted will likewise be swiftly replenished, and that is
because your standard is there at that height. It's like I have said: however
high your gong is, that is due to your xinxing being at that
height, for there is a measure. When that measure is there at that height, the gong
can't help but go up to that point, and things are thus quickly replenished.
Increasing gong is actually really easy. It is raising xinxing
that's hard. So that is why gong is so hard to build up. (Applause)

I've now read all the question slips. (Applause) Our
Dafa disciples really have been working hard in the past few years of validating
Dafa, clarifying the truth, and saving sentient beings; for a lot of Dafa
disciples so much so that they feel really fatigued, and many people have
overcome challenges of every type along the way in doing these things. You can't
help but say that Dafa disciples are amazing. Actually, though it's me saying
you are amazing, I'm just repeating the words gods are using. It is they who say
you're amazing. If it were just me saying you are amazing, well, I'm your
master, so of course I'm a little partial to my disciples. The broader range of
lives had to be convinced, and that's why, no matter how it may seem, things are
getting better overall for our disciples even though you might meet with a lot
of trouble and setbacks as you validate the Fa.

The Fa's rectification of the cosmos is sure to succeed. Even
those things arranged by the old forces wouldn't dare to have it not succeed.
It's only that their plans interfered with the Fa-rectification and harmed a lot
of things in the Fa-rectification, which is why the factors of the old forces
must be thoroughly eliminated. Dafa disciples won't be validating the Fa forever
here in the human world, for the time when the Fa rectifies the human world will
definitely arrive. Soon the Fa-rectification that Dafa is doing in the cosmos
will draw to a close. People now know that the cosmos is growing further apart
from the Milky Way. In other words, all of this isn't just something that only I
am saying, and it's not something that just Dafa disciples can know: even human
beings will gradually come to know it.

Everything that man doesn't believe in shall unfold before
his own eyes. Every unsolved mystery of the past will come forth here in the
human world, and when that happens it will be the time of the Fa rectifying the
human world. With everything that you Dafa disciples have done, you have shown
yourselves worthy of all that Dafa has given to forge you. I can say that the
Dafa disciples' validating of the Fa has, on the whole, achieved what it should,
and they have fulfilled their responsibilities. (Applause) And though
there still remains the rest of the journey to take, and though some things
remain to be done, I think none of that should pose a problem, for the most
trying time has passed and the most evil period is over. (Applause) The
road ahead should grow only broader, while everything should become ever more
clear, and you will become more and more mature. And being cultivators, you
should embody ever more greatly the poise and bearing of a Dafa disciple. In the
time to come Dafa disciples will be given recompense for all that they have
given over the entire Fa-rectification process. And even when it comes to the
persecution and losses suffered by mankind, in the time ahead mankind too will
be compensated. (Applause) Dafa will establish a future for mankind, and
when a person can act in an upright manner during this time when Dafa is being
spread and Dafa disciples are in the harsh predicament of being persecuted, that
kind of person should be blessed. Such a person has done what a person is
supposed to, so in the future a real, true environment for human living will be
established for them.

Before long everything will change, but as Dafa disciples,
you can't waver in any way before Consummation. You should do what you have to,
just as you have been all along. If so much as one thought or idea of yours is
extreme, and if you don't consider the consequences, or if you don't think of
Dafa's sake, I'll tell you, then you have not walked your path well. Since your
path is to be left for the future, you must succeed in blazing it. Your
cultivation's goal goes beyond self-Consummation, as you are to save sentient
beings, and you are helping the lives of the future to establish that future.
Your responsibility is big, but the payback that awaits you is enormous. What
you will gain later on far exceeds what you put in, as much as that may be. So I
hope that under no circumstance will you waver. Whether the verdict on Dafa is
overturned by people or not, whether a new situation comes about or not,
whatever the case, Dafa disciples should still save the sentient beings that
need to be saved. Keep doing what you should do all the way until Consummation!
(Long, enthusiastic applause)

1. "mind-quality" (lit.),
"character," or "thought"
2. Defined as "old ideas,
old culture, old customs, and old habits."
3. "Dafa is great"

Editor's note: The translation is subject to further
improvement so as to be closer to the original text. Last updated: October 22,
2005.